


Do I Remind You of Someone You Never Met (A Lonely Silhouette)

by GinnyBloomPotter



Series: The Ticking of My Pulse (The Clock in My Ear) [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Multiverse, Post-Season/Series 02, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Sequel, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Spoilers, The Hargreeves Meet Themselves, Time Travel, Time Travel Multiverse, Time Travel Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinnyBloomPotter/pseuds/GinnyBloomPotter
Summary: When they use the briefcase at the end of Season 2, they run into themselves. Except this universe is different. Very different.ORThe Canon Hargreeves meet the "Ask Yourself" Verse Hargreeves and it shows them a bit of what could have been.
Series: The Ticking of My Pulse (The Clock in My Ear) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1417792
Comments: 129
Kudos: 366





	1. I Hope You Got Your Thrills (Cause This Shit Just Got Real)

**Author's Note:**

> So! Why am I writing this? I don't even really have a significant plan for it. But I'm writing it anyway. I hope y'all are interested! 
> 
> Story title is from "Amaryllis" by Shinedown.
> 
> Chapter title is from "A New Way to Die (ANWTD)" by Shinedown.

Travelling by briefcase wasn’t the most fun way to travel, but when it was the only option, Vanya wasn’t about to complain. And as hard as it was to leave 1963, Sissy, and Harlan behind, part of her was thrilled to be back in a time period where she didn’t have to worry about getting kidnapped and tortured by the government because she had a Russian name. 

She might get kidnapped and tortured by any number of organizations, the government included, but at least it wouldn’t be because her mother had wanted her to feel some sort of connection to the country she was born in. 

Klaus and Allison’s hands were warm in hers, thrumming with life, and when everyone dropped hands, Vanya missed the physical connection, but she said nothing, looking around the entrance hall of the Academy where they had landed. Everyone was groaning and panting, which brought her back to the idea that  _ travelling by briefcase fucking sucked _ .

She watched Five reach for a newspaper on the table, and she heard Luther moan out, “What day is it?”

“April 2nd, 2019,” Five read out, voice awed. He also sounded unfairly normal, like they hadn’t just gone hurtling through the fabric of space and time, and a very small portion of Vanya kind of wanted to punch him. “It’s the day after the apocalypse.”

And, well, the Academy looked good for the day after the apocalypse. Still intact, if you ignored the staircase that was very much destroyed. 

“Wait, so we stopped it!” Allison surmised.

“My god, it’s over?” Vanya questioned, receiving a bright smile from Allison in return. 

Klaus’s broken voice rang out. “We actually succeeded at something; that’s incredible!” He was shouting by the end, and Vanya couldn’t stop herself from smiling either. Klaus started pulling her into a hug. “I don’t know about you guys but I need a drink.”

Klaus let go of her and pulled Luther in for a hug as well as the man responded with a “ _ Yes.” _

“In fact I need several!”

“I’m in, I’m in.” Vanya agreed readily, and they turned for the drawing room, even as Allison said something about finding Claire. 

Except the drawing room was already occupied. 

Vanya came face to face with herself, and the only thing she could think to say was “Shit.”

________________________________________________________

At some point, they were going to have to talk about Allison’s insistence to be around for absolutely everything that happened. Everyone happened to be around that night for dinner-- Vanya, Quentin, Ben, Luther, Klaus and Dave, and Diego (Eudora had pulled a night shift)… Mom had put together dinner with help from Ben, Diego, and Eudora, but it wasn’t anything fancy or special, and yet, once Allison had heard that everyone was together, she insisted on video calling in. 

It was only once Patrick and Claire had managed to pull her away for a charity dinner that she hung up, and even that was only after another minor argument about moving back to the area. 

The silence from the end of the call with Allison was soon replaced with noises from the entrance hall, and glances were exchanged between the family in the drawing room before almost everyone moved as one. 

Vanya found herself at the head of the pack as the noise from the entrance hall came closer, and the next thing she knew, she was looking herself in the face, for the second time in two days. 

“Shit,” said her clone, and Vanya couldn’t help but return the sentiment. 

“Five,” came a whine in Klaus’s voice, only the voice was coming from in front of her and not from beside Dave. She looked over and found that Klaus too had a clone, as did Diego, and there was Allison, and Quentin’s 13 year old body, and even a guy who looked like Luther on steroids. “Did we fuck up something again?”

“That depends,” her Quentin responded. “What did you mean to do?”

“He was talking to me,” 13 year old Quentin barked. “Who are you, anyway? Some outstretched, overgrown weed?”

The Luther behind her balked. “I didn’t think thirteen year old Quentin was  _ that  _ much of an ass.”

“I’m 58. And you’re not giant. Why are you not the size of a house?”

“I am not the size of a house,” the other Luther protested. 

Diego, meanwhile, came straight up to his long-haired counterpart and glared. 

“What the hell? he growled. 

Vanya’s eyes didn’t move from her own clone. The other her offered a tremulous smile. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry to barge in on you guys--”

Vanya shrugged. “That’s okay. You probably didn’t mean to.”

“Can we take a moment to address what the fuck is going on?” Ben sounded more tense than he’d been in a while. Or, at least, more tense than she’d  _ heard _ him in a long time. 

And Vanya would have to be completely blind to miss the looks Ben was receiving from the new arrivals. Only the long-haired, hat wearing Klaus didn’t look heartbroken at the sight of him, and that was because he was a little busy staring at Dave.

Wait-- No Ben… Thirteen year old Quentin… 

“Alternate universes colliding,” Vanya concluded, and young Quentin shot her a considering look. 

“What do you mean?” he demanded. 

And if she was anyone else… if he wasn’t Quentin and she wasn’t Vanya… that probably would have sent her blushing back into silence. As it was, a part of her cowered at his tone of voice. But… this might have been a different Quentin but it was still  _ Quentin _ , and she was beyond used to him. 

“You’re from a different universe. One where you left and Ben died and… the apocalypse, did the apocalypse happen?”

“Are you saying that it didn’t here?” Allison interjected, and Vanya shrugged. 

“I mean, no. It almost… It could have.”

“It almost did,” her Luther recalled. “If you hadn’t stopped…”

“I stopped it,” the older Quentin insisted. “It was me!”

“You hugged her,” Klaus scoffed. “It wasn’t rocket science.”

“Well, even if it had been, I still could have done it. I  _ am  _ an actual rocket scientist.”

“You’re a physicist,” Vanya told him, “and didn’t you yell at Luther last week for getting it mixed up?”

“Since when are you an expert on what I do?” 

“She’s not wrong,” Klaus appealed.

Quentin looked sour but he cut his losses and changed the subject. “Point being, you’re welcome.”

“Yes, Quentin, thank you for giving me a hug,” Vanya bit back a laugh, but she had to admit, if he hadn’t, she might not have stopped. Hell, if it had been anyone else, she might not have stopped. It was partially the shock of it all that had snapped her out of it. 

“Wait,  _ Quentin?” _ the other Klaus was aghast. “Does your Five have a  _ name?” _

“Klaus,” the long haired Diego broke from his staring contest to look at him. “Their Five is also a fully grown man. The name’s what you get hung up on?”

“It’s weird!” he defended himself. “Imagine our Five with a  _ name!” _

“I have a name,” Five protested. “It’s Five. I don’t need a new one. Especially not one that means ‘Five.’”

Quentin snorted. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? Tried to publish a paper under “Five” once though, and that did  _ not _ go well.”

“Can we refocus, please?” Allison pleaded. “How did we end up in an alternate universe?”

Five looked a little like he wanted to stab something. “How am I supposed to know? The briefcases aren’t supposed to work like that.”

“It depends what our working time travel theory is,” Quentin proposed. “If we’re talking grandfather paradoxes, then the ability to cross timelines and time travel shouldn’t coexist in the same conversation. If it’s a multiverse time travel theory though, where every instance of time travel automatically causes a splintering of the timeline, you could, in theory, jump timelines when trying to travel forward. Especially if you’ve done anything to alter the timeline.”

“And you know this as a rocket scientist,” Five taunted, and Quentin glared.

“You really are a little shit. Was I ever this much of a little shit?”

“Were you?” Ben challenged. “Past tense? Let’s be honest here; you still are.”

Vanya recognized the tense look behind her counterparts eyes. It was the look that screamed “I need a nap and y’all want to pull this crap?” and she took it upon herself to change the subject. 

“We should figure this out when you guys don’t look like you need six years of sleep.”

“Yeah,” the long-haired Diego said, “well, we did just almost die.”

Five huffed. “What else is new.”

“Anyway…” Vanya redirected. “There are plenty of bedrooms in the house. Why don’t we just go to bed for now and we can start thinking of ways to get you back home in the morning.”

Her Klaus snorted. “It’s like eight o’clock. The only eight I go to sleep at is eight AM.”

Dave placed a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to go to sleep,” he reminded him. “But I can think of plenty we can do in the meantime.”

The other Klaus looked downright heartbroken, but she was the only one who really seemed to notice. 

No one else had any arguments either, and so with Quentin and Five agreeing to jump people to the next landing to avoid the broken staircase, the room emptied out. 

Vanya’s clone hung back with Vanya. “What happened to the staircase, anyway?” she asked, sounding just a bit nervous. 

“In my defense, I thought Klaus was dead,” Vanya defended. “Actually, he  _ was  _ dead, and I watched it happen. It… It really wasn’t the best frame of mind to be in.”

The other her conceded the point. “I’m surprised the staircase is all that was damaged.”

“Once I went numb, it was much easier to control my powers.”

“You went supernova, huh?”

It wasn’t a memory she liked dwelling on. The events of the night before had haunted her as she’d tried to sleep, but still, she answered.

“A different Allison nicknamed it ‘The White Violin.’ Which is fitting, I suppose. The eyes…”

“The eyes,” alternate Vanya agreed. 

Quentin popped up in front of them, holding out a hand to each Vanya. They both accepted, and the next thing she knew, they were all on the second floor. 

The group said their good nights and separated. It was only once Vanya was alone in her room that she realized Allison still didn’t know about their new house guests. 

Well,  _ that  _ was going to be a fun phone conversation. 


	2. Sweet Creature (Wherever I Go You Bring Me Home)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee cups and napkins in hats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!
> 
> Chapter title is from "Sweet Creature" by Harry Styles.

Vanya had completely forgotten about the previous night’s events, but was quickly reminded when she walked into the kitchen and came face to face with a long-haired Klaus. 

“Hey, Vanny,” he greeted, but he didn’t look at her for long, going back to staring at a mug of something that definitely was not coffee. “Which one are you?”

“Not your universe’s. Sorry.”

Klaus laughed a bit. “I guess not much changes between worlds. You apologize the same way she does, like it’s a reflex.”

Vanya started the coffee maker, smirking humorlessly. “It pretty much is one. Old habits die hard, I suppose. And you don’t seem all that different from my Klaus either.”

“Look at that; awesome in any universe.” Despite his boast, he didn’t seem all that cheerful, and when she joined him with a cup of coffee a minute later, she grasped at his forearm and offered a soft smile. 

“You okay?”

“Always am,” he was probably attempting to sound reassuring, but it didn’t work very well. 

“Okay, don’t tell me. I won’t make you. But you can if you want to. I promise not to judge.”

He looked up at her, eyes hopeful. And yet, he declined. “How sweet. Unnecessary, though.”

“Is it not necessary because you have nothing to say or because you don’t believe me?”

He froze, then sighed and looked back down at his mug. Now that she was closer, she could smell the whiskey in it. 

“Your Klaus, he’s happy, isn’t he?”

Vanya pursed her lips, and tried to find a way to phrase it. “Not always. The ghosts, you know? But… generally, I guess. Ben’s been like a rock. And when he came back from the 60’s with Dave in tow…”

Klaus smiled, but Vanya could tell it wasn’t genuine. “He got to keep Dave…”

“I’m sorry, Klaus. It couldn’t have been easy, losing him.”

“I loved him. Love him. I tried to stop it, you know… When we were… We were in the early sixties, and I tried to… I thought if he never enlisted, he wouldn’t die. And I… all I managed to do was get him to enlist faster. And get punched in the face, too.”

She placed a nervous, trembling hand against his cheek. She didn’t know how he’d take the physical affection, if he’d appreciate it or reject it or maybe even both, but he didn’t move an inch in either way, so she took the chance and left it there. His stubble was rough against her hand, and her fingertips caught a tear escaping from his eye. She didn’t mention it. He didn’t either.

“I’m so sorry,” Vanya whispered. “I don’t… Klaus, I wish I could… I wish I knew what to say to help, but I’ve never been good with that stuff. Do… I can offer you a hug? I know it’s not--”

She was cut off when Klaus surged forward, and her arms were full of her brother before she could fully move to accept him. She gripped him tightly, though, and pondered the way he smelled, the difference between this Klaus and the one she knew. It wasn’t just the long hair, or the grief behind his eyes. It was the way her Klaus always smelled like Bath and Body Works body spray and cigarettes, and sometimes like alcohol and sweat, but all she could smell on this one was whiskey and hay and something weird and bleach-like, like ozone or chlorine. It was how he carried himself, like he was bearing the weight of everyone’s sins all on his own. It was how wary she felt around him, when she’d never been afraid of how her Klaus would receive her in her life. 

But he was still her brother, and her mind wasn’t quite caught on how different he was from her Klaus, but rather what had happened to him to close him off so much. 

She knew the answer, but knowing didn’t make it hurt any less.

They broke apart when apeman Luther wandered into the kitchen, still half asleep. He made a beeline for the half-full coffee pot, and then sat opposite them with a filled mug. 

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Vanya. “Are you--”

“This universe. Not yours.”

He nodded and clutched the mug tightly between his hands. He didn’t drink, instead looking down into the cup, eyes glazed and tired.

And there was another difference between her siblings and these weird clones. She wasn’t always awake and alone with Luther and Klaus-- she rarely was, actually-- but any room with her Klaus in it was sure to have some conversation going. But this room was silent. Neither Luther nor Klaus looked all too interested in having a conversation, and Vanya had no idea what to say about anything.

With Klaus and Vanya’s conversation cut short, and Luther staring into his coffee cup on the other side of the table, the kitchen fell into complete silence, and left Vanya waiting for someone else to walk in and break it up. 

___________________________________________________________

It took a little bit, but eventually everyone made their way down to the kitchen. Mom seemed beyond thrilled to have so many people to cook for, and she went for quite a breakfast spread, making eggs, bacon, waffles, and porridge. Both Vanyas stayed far away from the last option, but Diego had always been a particular fan of the stuff, especially the way Grace made it, all sweet and cinnamon-y. 

The long-haired Diego had made a beeline for Grace as soon as she walked into the kitchen, hugging her tightly. Vanya could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. Her Diego looked a little bit unsettled, but he said nothing, not begrudging his alternate self the opportunity to have a moment with her. Once they’d finally separated, the alternate universe versions of the others also lined up for their own hugs, all but Five.

Eventually, they all made their way to seats around the table. They had to squish together a bit, and the larger Luther got the head of the table all to himself. Vanya didn’t miss the way Dave had ended up sandwiched between the two Klauses, nor the way Ben had ended up between the long-haired Klaus and his Vanya. 

“We should talk about your universe,” began her Luther, sitting at the opposite end of the table from his larger counterpart, squished next to Allison. 

“Before we do that,” Ben interjected, “maybe we should figure out what we’re going to call each other. There are two of five of us here, and if Allison comes back from LA at any point…”

“Well, Five and Quentin are easy,” Vanya said. “And everyone except for me and Vanya look different enough that we shouldn’t have any issues telling us apart visually. By name though, that’s going to be harder.”

“We could just use an A and B or 1 and 2 system,” Allison suggested. 

“Do you really think we’ll be able to get anyone to agree on who should be A or 1?” asked the other Vanya, and Vanya couldn’t help but agree. Diego at the least, either of them, would take umbrage at being assigned B or 2.

“Well, this is our universe,” her Diego attempted to reason, “so maybe we just call our visitors 2. Like my Antonio Banderas-looking twin over there is Diego 2.”

“Ha!” crowed the long-haired Klaus, raising his arms in victory. “Antonio Banderas! I told you!”

“Wait a minute,” the other Diego spoke over him. “I ain’t the number 2 of anything. The numbers system is part of the reason we fell apart in the first place. Team Zero, man! Team Zero!”

Vanya didn’t understand what that meant, but this was all going exactly as she’d thought. “What if we put the numbers in a hat. No one is better than anyone else that way, and it’s completely random. Mom can pull it out for each of us. It’ll just be easier for all of us that way.”

Neither Diego looked all too happy, and neither did the Luthers, but they agreed, and so Vanya tore her napkin in two and Ben pulled a pen out of his pocket and passed it to her. She wrote a number on each and crumpled the napkins, taking the hat from Klaus’s head and putting them inside. 

Grace was in the middle of flipping eggs, so both Diegos reached for the hat before anyone could argue. They uncrumpled the napkins at the same time. 

The long-haired Diego scowled, while her Diego grinned smugly. “One,” the latter announced.

“Okay, fine,” Allison said. “So then we’re 2. Stop it!” she pointed an accusing finger at Diego 2. “It means nothing.”

“Yeah, see if you’re still saying that when their Allison 1 comes over.”

“We’re still going to be an issue,” interrupted Vanya 2. “How is anyone going to tell us apart?”

Vanya paused, then pulled a hair elastic from her wrist and tied her hair back into a low ponytail. “I’ll wear my hair back. I usually do anyway. If you keep your hair down, then we shouldn’t have a problem.”

Vanya 2 reached up to play with the ends of her hair nervously, but she nodded her agreement. 

“Great,” Quentin said. “Now that we’ve settled that-- why were you guys time travelling in the first place?”

Five frowned. “The apocalypse happened. I used my powers to take us back in time but I overshot it, and we ended up scattered across the timeline in Dallas in the 60’s. I arrived just in time to see a nuclear apocalypse. Hazel came, took me back ten days earlier so I could try and stop it. Which we did, and then we used the briefcase to go back to our timeline and ended up here.”

Luther 2 looked affronted. “There’s a lot more that happened than that.”

“It’s irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant? I-- okay, I didn’t do much. But Allison got married and helped organize a sit-in that ended in a riot. Klaus started a cult. Vanya lost her memory and got abducted by the FBI and gave her powers to a kid by accident. Diego ended up in a mental asylum and got a girlfriend who had powers like us and tried to kill us. Klaus started a  _ cult. _ ”

“You said that twice,” Five rolled his eyes. 

“Because he started a  _ cult.  _ I’m sorry, I feel like you aren’t listening to me.”

Vanya kind of short circuited after “got abducted by the FBI,” but she still listened and processed, and decided this was all far too ridiculous for her to process without a LOT more coffee. She stood up to go make another pot, wishing for a minute that she was at Quentin’s apartment, with its fancy espresso maker, or even that she had the time to go by the coffee shop by her place. It seemed like a good time for one of Gareth’s miracle coffees. 

“Well, it seems like you guys have been through a lot,” Luther 1 understated. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More conversations coming next chapter! I didn't have the time to add more and I hit a good place to stop so I stopped here.
> 
> I figured labeling them 1 and 2 would be easiest, but I didn't know how well it would work. I still don't. Is it working?
> 
> The reaction has been so heartening! Thank y'all so much for the kind words!! 
> 
> Please leave a comment down below!


	3. Given Half the Chance Would I Take Any of It Back (It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya has friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This... this got away from me a bit. It's shorter than it felt when I was writing it but it's still decently long. Enjoy!
> 
> Chapter title is from "Shake it Out" by Florence and the Machine

Vanya’s new pot of coffee was drained by various siblings within seconds, and she stared, disappointed, into her half-empty mug and resigned herself to going through the conversation without nearly as much coffee as she’d have liked to have. 

“What about you guys?” Allison asked. “How did you avert the apocalypse?”

“I thought we’d said that it was because I hugged Vanya?” Quentin said, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, but the fact that you’re an adult raises other questions,” Luther 2 added. “For example, why are you an adult? Also, your Luther isn’t a genetically modified half-ape. Your Ben is still alive.”

“Oh, that was all Vanya,” Luther 1 explained. “Maybe she should tell the story.”

Vanya grimaced, even as Vanya 2 shot her an almost hopeful expression, and everyone else gave more surprised looks. 

“I had these visions,” Vanya started. “Dreams, really. We were 12, and I had a dream that Quentin-- he was still Five then-- that he ran away at breakfast and got himself stuck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. When I woke up, I begged him not to go anywhere. I didn’t think the dream really meant anything, but I was terrified, and he agreed not to try time travelling until Dad thought he was ready, no matter how long that took.”

“I only agreed because you were crying,” Quentin told her, and she looked unimpressed. 

“Who are you trying to impress, Q?” When he glared, she stuck her tongue out. “Anyway, I forgot about it after that, for the most part. For a few years, anyway. And then I had a dream that Ben died. I’d had dreams that you guys got hurt before, or that I did, but it felt so real… when the mission alarm went off that day, I had this sense of deja vu, and when I saw the crane coming at him later…”

“She jumped in front of it,” Ben finished. “Which did not end well.”

“It ended fine. I’m still alive. You’re still alive.”

“I’m also still not reassured.”

‘Why do I get the feeling that you’ve had this argument before?” Allison quipped. 

“So then what?” Luther 2 interrupted. “Quentin’s here, Ben’s alive; what else did you dream about?”

“A few things,” Vanya admitted. “A book I never should have written in the first place. I saw you get hurt in an accident a few years after the rest of us left the Academy. That’s why you moved out of the Academy, actually. After we stopped it, you and I kept in touch more, and-- well, you never did tell me why you moved out, but Toni suggested you felt bad about how it all went down.”

“That’s not--” Luther 1 stopped. “It was… you getting hurt saving me, it was a wake-up call, but it wasn’t guilt, it was… well, yeah. A wake-up call.”

“You got hurt saving me?” Luther 2 asked, nervous, and Vanya shrugged. 

“I didn’t set out to get hurt or anything. You wouldn’t… you wouldn’t listen. So when the time came and I pushed you out of the way, I got hurt. But it wasn’t bad.”

“Mom had to cut your shirt off of you and then pick bits of melted fabric out of your back,” Klaus 1 recalled. “You squeezed my hand so hard I had bruises the next day.”

“You never told me you got bruises!” 

“I didn’t. I’m exaggerating.” Klaus was obviously lying, but Vanya ignored it in favor of finishing the story. 

“Anyway… What else was there?” she muttered. “Oh! I saw Diego and Eudora’s break up and I stopped it. Um… Allison rumoring Claire--that didn’t happen either. I saw Klaus get assaulted and stopped it. And then… a couple of weeks ago, I saw Dad die. And I didn’t… I saw the whole apocalypse. The way it was meant to go down. 13-year old Quentin-- Five, I suppose-- coming home, and Leonard trying to… to use me. And what I did to--” She glanced at Allison, who was watching her with wide, slightly teary eyes. “I saw Klaus get kidnapped, end up in Vietnam. Luther locks-- The whole thing. I saw everything.

“None of it happened, though. I mean, Dad still died, not that I put much effort into stopping that one, and Klaus got kidnapped. But he came back okay, and with Dave in tow. And in the dream, the apocalypse happened because we were… because we hated each other. Or, at least, we didn’t get along nearly as well as we do in this timeline. It happened because I thought you all… I thought you…”

“You thought they were going to hurt you,” Vanya 2 finished. Her eyes were haunted, downcast and sad. “That they wouldn’t understand and they were going to try and drug you again, beat you down into submission.”

The room was somber and silent, and Vanya watched her counterpart try and brush at her eyes, wipe the tears away before anyone could see her cry. 

“But it didn’t!” Vanya finally protested. “It happened-- well, it didn’t happen, but the reason it would have was because I thought everyone was dead. I watched Klaus get shot. I lost control of my powers and I hurt-- I thought everyone was going to hate me. That I’d lost my brothers and Allison was never going to talk to me again, was going to kill me for killing them. I thought Toni and Helen and Zoe would--”

“Who?” Vanya 2 was distracted by what were evidently unfamiliar names, and that scared her, a world where she didn’t know her friends. Zoe, she understood. She’d only met her what, a week ago? But Toni? Helen? 

“Toni’s my best friend,” Vanya answered, slowing from her panicked recounting of the events leading up to her losing her mind. “And Helen, she’s first chair--”

“--violin!” Vanya 2 finished for her. Her eyes were sparkling a bit. “You-- you became friends with Helen?”

“She pitied me,” Vanya admitted. “We almost didn’t. But I’m pitiful, apparently, and eventually she asked me out for drinks after practice, and we all-- me and Helen and Angie and Andrew and David-- we all became friends. And Zoe’s…”

How to really explain Zoe?”

“Zoe’s Vanya’s girlfriend,” Klaus 1 teased. “Or she will be, once they go on a real date that isn’t a last minute pancake breakfast.”

“I should have waited a lot longer before telling you about her…” Vanya mourned. 

“I’m the reason you figured out you liked her. If you waited, you wouldn’t be telling us about her at all.”

She tossed a piece of bacon at his head, and he caught it with a grin, taking a bite and then offering it to Dave.

“You have friends,” Vanya 2 noted. “That’s…”

“It doesn’t suck,” Vanya admitted. 

“Are we just moving on from the apocalypse conversation?” Diego 2 sounded impatient. “If they were dead, how are they fine now?”

“We weren’t dead,” Ben said. “Well, Klaus was, apparently--”

“God didn’t like me,” Klaus 1 complained. “God is a little girl on a bicycle and apparently, she doesn’t  _ like _ me.”

Klaus 2 shared a commiserating look with him. “You too, huh? God’s a bitch.”

“A tiny, bike riding bitch,” Klaus 1 agreed.

“--but it didn’t take,” Ben finished finally. “We were never dead though. Vanya didn’t stop to check.”

“I was spiralling,” she tried to defend herself. 

“Yes, and that spiral almost brought down the entire building,” Quentin added. “But it didn’t. Because I hugged her.”

Vanya wondered if she should mention her interaction with the White Violin. Was it relevant information? Evidently, there were at least two almost identical alternate universes. Their apocalypse timeline was the same as the one she saw in her visions, the timeline that happened to the White Violin and her family in that universe. Except whereas they ended up in the commission, these versions of them apparently ended up in the 60’s. 

In the end, she said nothing. 

“Right,” she said instead. “We’ve covered this. So now you’re caught up. If you’ll excuse me, I should probably catch our Allison up on everything.” 

No one protested, and Vanya left the kitchen, breathing deep once she was on her own. She was nervous that they’d tear each other apart, but she didn’t have the energy to deal with that at the moment. 

She’d called Allison the night before but gotten no response, and she didn’t leave a message. She still didn’t know how to tell her the truth about this. Allison coming home was only bound to make things more complicated. 

She looked back through the open door at Vanya 2. There was a weight missing from her shoulders, a weight Vanya recognized as the drugs she’d stopped taking, but there was also something closed off about her, and Vanya had a flash of memory, of the way the others used to talk when they got back from missions, of the questions she used to ask and the brushing off she got in response, the “you had to be there”s and the “oh nothing”s. 

Something clenched in her chest. She started walking away, heading upstairs to the drawing room to make the phone call. 

She’d figure it out. She had to. 

“Vanya?” Allison’s voice over the phone was sleep-heavy and slurred. “It’s like six in the morning.”

“Sorry. I forgot about time zones.”

“It’s fine. What’s going on?”

‘I just… I thought you should know…”

“Did something happen? Is everyone-- no one’s hurt are they?” She sounded frantic and nervous, and Vanya was quick to reassure her.

“No! No, everyone’s okay. But we… at dinner last night, there were some… guests. And it… it was weird. I don’t know...”

“...What?”

“I… I really don’t know how to--”

“Should I come home?” 

Vanya stopped. She didn’t fully want to say yes. It went against everything she’d told her yesterday. 

“I don’t know. It’s up to you. I just didn’t want something like this to happen without keeping you in the loop.”

“I’m coming. Patrick’s starting filming for a new show tomorrow, so I’ll have to bring Claire with me. I’ll see you soon, alright?”

“Yeah. See you soon.”

She hung up just as there was an electrical suction noise beside her, and when she looked, Five was standing next to her.

“They’re about to tear each other apart.”

Vanya shrugged. “I thought that might happen. The Diegos, at least, might set each other on fire. Although I thought you and Quentin would kill each other first.”

“That’s a fair assumption. Quentin’s an ass.”

“You’re not seeming much better.”

He gave her an appraising look. “You’ve got a bite,” he noted. 

“Does the other me not have one?”

“She does,” he allowed, “but it’s not as sharp. She still says things like she expects everyone to get angry with her for opening her mouth.”

“To be fair to her, it took years of effort and therapy to stop that particular habit. Given what I saw, I doubt she’s had the same… advantages.”

He nodded and looked away, towards the fireplace. The wall above the mantle was empty. It used to hold a framed portrait of Reginald, but Luther had taken it down the other day, and there were plans of getting it replaced with a portrait of the seven of them, to make up for Vanya’s absence in the older portraits. Diego was campaigning to have Mom in it too, but everyone else was resisting, mostly to annoy him. 

“You know, in our world, there’s a giant portrait of me up there,” Five told her. “I think it was supposed to be some sort of message.  _ This is what happens if you defy me _ ,” he said that in a deep voice, accented like Dad’s was. “I guess you guys wouldn’t have had that though, if your Five didn’t leave.”

“We had the watchful eyes of Reginald Hargreeves instead,” Vanya said, “reminding us constantly that he was always watching. I think there actually was a miniature camera in the eye of the portrait.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d put one in my portrait either,” Five mused.

“Distrustful creep. Anyway, Luther took it down a few days ago. I can’t say I miss it. It’s nice to be able to sit in this room without feeling him looking at us.”

Five hummed his assent, and they stared at the blank stretch of wall in companionable silence for a minute. 

“Did you get in touch with your Allison?” he finally asked.

“Mm. She’s coming with Claire. I don’t know when they’ll get here, though. Depends what flight they get.”

“Good,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see a different Allison. One who hasn’t fucked things up for herself.”

Vanya scowled. “Stop it. Don’t be an ass. Your Allison may have fucked up, but it’s not like mine didn’t almost make the same mistake. Only reason she didn’t was because I warned her to be careful, and even then, it took coercing her to come visit for her to avoid it. I’m not saying she didn’t fuck up, but when you’re trained to get your way in any way you can… Dad fucked us all up. So don’t… just don’t.”

“Jesus,” Five muttered. “Alright.”

“Alright,” Vanya replied. 

“You really made things better, didn’t you? Your visions, all of that…”

“According to the dreams, you leaving really weakened us as a family. Without you to keep me involved, they forgot about me. And then Ben dying was kind of the final nail in the coffin. The things they said after Ben died… I don’t know if your Vanya heard them or not. The version of me that did was from a slightly different universe than yours.”

“Wait, you’ve met a different Vanya? Do you know how you got the dreams?” Five prodded.

“I don’t. Not really. Not the mechanics of it, or why it worked. But I… When I was playing the concert, I had this out of body experience. I don’t know if it was real but it made sense. I saw… I saw a different me. In another world, not yours or mine, the apocalypse happened. But while you guys ended up in the 60’s, they ended up in the shell of the Commission. I don’t… I can’t say I understand how they did it, but through some sort of invention, and a combination of a few of our powers, they managed to send the dreams out into the ether. That other me, she said that the working theory was something about despite being suppressed, my powers still needed some sort of outlet. No one really knows though. Or, at least, I don’t. I don’t know anything, Five.”

“But there’s a working theory, which is more than I thought there was. That’s… that’s interesting.”

“I guess. But anyway, yeah. Things were better. Not perfect-- nothing could be, not with the childhood we’ve had. But I had Quentin. Your Vanya didn’t. I had support. And with that… plus the way things went down after I saved Ben, and the way things went after we saved Luther, it kept us together more. Kept us in touch. We would have drifted if not.”

Five was quiet. “I didn’t mean to abandon you, you know,” he finally admitted. “I don’t think I even thought things through at all when I left that day. I was just so angry, so intent on proving I could do it… It was my plan to prove things to him, but I thought I’d be able to come back.”

Vanya smiled softly. “I know that, Five. I don’t think I’m the one you need to tell though. It’s not me you left.”

She squeezed his upper arm, too used to her interactions with Quentin to consider whether this version of him would appreciate the touch. They were so  _ different.  _ There were rough, sharp edges on Five that time had smoothed over on Quentin. Anger that he no longer possessed. 

And yet Five was the same as the Quentin she knew. Stubborn and mean, with a heart bigger than he had space for. Smart as a whip and quick and witty and so,  _ so _ independent. 

His arm came up so his hand could cover hers, and he returned the squeeze. Before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek, then turned tail and ran for the door. 

When she risked a glance back, and he was standing stock still with a hand on his flushed cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to give as many people as possible a chance to have a one on one with someone else, probably Vanya because I'm nothing if not predictable. Also, I'm having a lot of trouble balancing those huge ensemble scenes, so IDK if I'll include many more. 
> 
> I don't know when I'll next update, but if it's not in a week, someone yell at me. 
> 
> It's been so long since I've been in this world, I keep forgetting that the apocalypse was only averted 2 days ago at this point. It feels like it's been years. If they seem a little off, like they're too well adjusted for somehting that happened so recently that's why.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!! Please Please leave a comment! Give me your thoughts!


	4. If She Had the Proper Words to Say She Would Tell Him (But She'd Have Nothing Left to Sell Him)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison goes to get her hair done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" by Panic! at the Disco. Yes, I am back on my Panic/TUA kick. Don't @ me.

Allison felt her world stop when she heard that this world’s Allison was coming into town and bringing Claire with her. It had already been weeks since she’d seen her when they went back to the sixties, and she’d been in Dallas for over two years. Almost two and a half years since she’d seen her daughter, and the first time she was going to see her, it wouldn’t even be her. 

Allison liked to think that she was taking this whole “alternate universe” thing quite gracefully, thank you very much, but if anything was going to shake her, it would be this.

“Are you okay?” Vanya 2 whispered, and it was weird to think of her as  _ Vanya 2 _ , but it had already started sticking. 

“Claire…” Allison replied, and Vanya nodded. 

“I’m sorry. It’s going to be difficult, isn’t it?”

“It’s been over two years. The Claire that will be here, she won’t even be my Claire. More than that… It’s going to be like being slapped in the face with everything I did wrong, the mistakes I made… She’s a better version of me.”

Vanya wrapped an arm around her. “I won’t… I  _ can’t  _ tell you it was worth it. But I also can’t really say that I’m… I  _ like  _ the version of you I have. I… honestly? I think that if it wasn’t for the mistakes you made, we wouldn’t be anywhere close to where we are. You and I, our relationship… considering where we were when you first got home after Dad died, I don’t think you would’ve made the effort if you weren’t driven by the things you did. I know that if you hadn’t put in the effort, I definitely wouldn’t have. I kind of didn’t. And I don’t regret it. I’m glad to be where I am with you. I don’t care what that Allison did, or the way her relationship with the other me developed. I appreciate what  _ we  _ have.”

And that was kind of the perfect thing to say, wasn’t it? 

Yet, when Allison went up to the guest bedroom after breakfast, it didn’t stop her from staring in the mirror and hating what she saw. 

The sixties hairstyle wasn’t doing her many favors, if she was honest. She pulled at the sewn-in hair piece. She wanted it gone. She wanted her old hair back. 

She was never particularly good at taking out weaves. The ladies at the salon had been trying to teach her, but it hadn’t been working out particularly well. If she wanted to get rid of hers, she’d need an appointment at that place on Marigold Avenue. And a phone to make that appointment.

It was with a groan that she left the room and went to find Vanya 1. 

She heard the violin playing as she opened the door, and she followed the music to Vanya’s bedroom. She knocked, and it was her Vanya that opened the door. Vanya 1 was behind her, carefully bringing the violin she’d heard away from her shoulder. 

“Everything OK?” Vanya 2 asked. 

“Fine. I just… I need to get this weave taken out. Does this world have that salon on Marigold?”

Vanya 1 nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know if they take walk-ins…”

“They don’t. Can I use your phone? I don’t know the number.”

She nodded again, passing the violin to Vanya 2 and pulling her phone out of her pocket, unlocking it for her and opening a search engine to find the number. 

They had an opening in half an hour, Allison learned from her conversation with the receptionist, because of a cancellation. She just had to make it there in time. Vanya 1 agreed to drive her over, and she left Vanya 2 with the violin to practice for the first time in over a month. 

She was still in the clothes she’d arrived in, but she had no other options. Maybe once this universe’s Allison arrived, she’d be able to borrow clothes from her. Vanya was far too small for her to fit into her clothes. She might be able to borrow from Klaus, come to think of it. She had no time to find him though, and so she resigned herself to wearing what she already was.

It was weird to see the interior of Vanya’s car. It was weird to see Vanya’s car at all. Her Vanya didn’t have a car, as far as she could tell. She didn’t even know she knew how to drive until they were in the 60’s and she was driving everywhere.

This Vanya’s car was an older model, well maintained but obviously bought used. She kept the inside clean, but not empty. There was a tube of lip balm and of hand cream in one cup holder on the center console, and a cup of spare change in the other. There was a book of CDs in the foot well of the passenger seat, and a folder on the dashboard that, when Allison investigated, turned out to be full of sheet music. 

She flipped through the book of CDs while Vanya drove. It was mostly Broadway cast albums, but there were some classical collections, and a few pop music and alt-rock albums. 

“You’ve really got a thing for musicals, huh?” Allison commented. 

Vanya chuckled. “Don’t start with me. They’re good, okay?”

“I’m not starting anything!” Allison insisted. “I like plenty of musicals myself. Just… not as much as you evidently do.”

Vanya pressed her lips together in an effort not to smile. 

“So what is your universe’s version of me like?” Allison asked. “Is she-- is she still married?”

“To Patrick? Yeah. They’re good. Are you-- I’m guessing things didn’t go well with you guys.”

“No. It… I didn’t have anyone to stop me from making the mistakes you stopped your me from making. And when he found out it… it really didn’t end well. He got a divorce, he got custody, he got my pride… He got everything. I haven’t seen Claire in over two years. Mostly because I was trapped in the past for two years, but--”

“I’m sorry,” Vanya said. “I didn’t even-- this is gonna be impossible for you, isn’t it?”

“It’s not going to be fun,” Allison admitted. “Hopefully… Hopefully, we’ll get back to our timeline soon enough, and I’ll be able to see my daughter.  _ My  _ daughter, not this alternate universe Claire. But in the meantime…”

“I can call her back,” Vanya suggested. “If you don’t want to see her, I mean. Maybe she’ll stay put, or leave Claire with her in laws or something.”

“No!” Allison didn’t realize just how much she wanted to see Claire, even if it was the wrong one, until she was shouting. “No, it’s okay. I--”

“You still want to see her, even if it’s not  _ her.” _

_ “ _ Yeah. Yeah I guess so. Is that weird?”

“It’s human. I don’t blame you, if that means anything. Maybe seeing Claire, even the wrong one, will help you… I don’t know, get some closure or something?”

“Maybe,” Allison mused. Desperate to change the topic, Allison shook her head. “So, anything else? What’s she like, your Allison?”

Vanya hummed, considering. “Honestly, I don’t know that she’s any different from you. She’s… she’s stubborn. And smart. And she cares a lot, about a lot. The only… I think the only reason she has anything you don't is because I warned her. And even then… it’s not like I called her and she immediately just listened, you know? She didn’t believe me at first. She thought it was just a dream, that she wasn’t going to rumor Claire, or lose her temper, or anything like that. It took her coming for a visit to stop her from falling down that rabbit hole.”

“What-- what do you mean? What are you--”

“It’s not-- nothing bad, I swear! I just meant… people develop differently based on the support they have. And if you didn’t have support, or a warning system, or people or anything… They were your decisions and your choices, but it makes sense that you made them. And my Allison is the same as you, except…”

“She had you,” Allison finished. “But I would’ve too, if I had tried to.”

“And that’s Dad’s fault. You make your own choices, but those choices are influenced by circumstances, and yours were just… slightly shittier.”

And, well, Allison figured a lot of this might not have worked out quite the way Vanya wanted it to, that her words had not come out exactly as she’d wanted them to, but she thought she probably understood what she meant, and Allison ignored the pang that shot through her stomach.

“Thanks…?”

Vanya offered a shy smile. Allison, searching for a way to stop talking, pulled a disc out of the CD book at random and loaded it into the car stereo. 

She didn’t recognize the music that started playing, but Vanya started singing along under her breath. It was sweet, and it made Allison smile as she watched her.

_ “She paints her fingers with a close precision… He starts to notice empty bottles of gin… And takes a moment to assess the sin she’s paid for…” _

They pulled up outside of the salon, and Vanya pressed a wad of bills into Allison’s hand. 

“Vanya…”

“I’m sorry, did you have money?”

… Okay, that was a fair point. 

“Thanks.”

Vanya smiled. “I’m going to go grocery shopping. I’ll come back to pick you up.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be…”

“If I’m back before you’re done, I’ll just come in and wait. My friend Andrew is a receptionist there. Orchestra really doesn’t pay well.”

“Okay, then. See you soon.”

Allison got out of the car and paused in the fresh air. It was with a grin that she headed into the salon. The man behind the front desk smiled back at her.

“Allison!” he greeted. “Laverne’s got you covered, over at the third chair.”

Yes, Allison thought as she sat down. Time for a fresh start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liked this opportunity to go into Allison's mindset a little bit. I hope it came across okay, and not disjointed. 
> 
> The CD Allison put in is "Vices and Virtues" by Panic! at the Disco, and the song Vanya sings is "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" which is why the chapter is named after it. 
> 
> Is it weird that Andrew is the receptionist? I thought it'd be cute but IDK. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed! Please leave a comment, let me know what you thought!


	5. Someone Is on Your Side (No One Is Alone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya plays the violin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for how long this took. I'd defend myself, but there is no defense. I'm sorry. 
> 
> Also, trigger warning!! This chapter deals a little with suicidal ideation and depression. Nothing atypical for canon, especially for canon Vanya, but I still thought I'd mention it. 
> 
> Chapter title is from "No One Is Alone" from the musical "Into the Woods."

When Allison left, taking Vanya 1 with her, Vanya 2 took the violin up to her chin and closed her eyes. It had been over a month since she’d last played, and that hadn’t gone well at all. 

Part of her missed it, missed it like a missing limb, like someone had taken a part of her body away from her. Her music had been such a solace for so long, and to have gone so long without it, even when she couldn’t remember ever playing before, had felt empty and wrong, like the time she’d sprained her wrist when she was ten and wasn’t able to play for six weeks. 

And still another part of her was terrified to put the bow to the strings. It might only take a short leap to fall into that almost comatose state she’d been in when she’d last played, and if she lost control…

But she wouldn’t, would she? She hadn’t lost control almost at all since then. She’d been using her powers and she’d been  _ fine. _

But that was without her violin, wasn’t it?

She took a steadying breath and fell back to an old favorite, the violin section of “No One is Alone,” from “Into the Woods.” It had been her favorite song as a kid for quite a while, and it was the first song she’d learned to play. The chords and notes were familiar to her, and the music seemed to flow from her fingertips with barely a thought, muscle memory taking over before she could blink.

She could feel her powers stirring as the music poured out of her, but she didn’t stop. She wasn’t out-of-control. Nothing was breaking. No one was getting hurt. She could feel the sound waves like they were physical, and she got herself lost in the song. 

She pulled the song to a close, and when she blinked, she was blinking away tears. She heard a cough from the doorway, and when she looked up, she found Ben standing there. He was smiling at her, and she felt warm for a minute, before she remembered the last time she’d seen her brother, and she tasted something sour that reminded her suspiciously of guilt. 

“I forget how much you always loved that song, sometimes,” he said. “I guess not much changes between universes, huh?”

“Guess not,” Vanya admitted, reluctantly laying the violin carefully on the bed. She couldn’t look at him, not full in the face. He seemed to notice.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “It’s weird, playing again. I didn’t while I was in the 60’s. I couldn’t remember anything, so I couldn’t.”

“Right. Luther mentioned that. You lost your memory?”

“I did. It… actually, I think it was for the better. I was able to… move on, I guess. I don’t think I would have been able to if I could remember everything. I… I can control myself, for the most part, and I don’t think I would’ve been able to otherwise. I wish… Getting my memories  _ back _ was a traumatic process I kind of wish hadn’t happened, but I’m… in hindsight, I’m kind of glad to have lost everything and then get it back…”

It was more talking than she was used to, even with Ben, and she trailed off into an anxious silence, ready for him to be irritated and annoyed with her refusal to shut up. He didn’t seem to be, though. 

“How did you get them back?”

She shivered. “Drugs. LSD, I think. It was… like some fucked-up dream.”

“You think?”

“I didn’t… it wasn’t my choice. I-- Luther mentioned that the FBI…”

“Right. He did. So he was-- what, they drugged you?”

She shrugged. “Pretty much. Tied me down, shot me up with LSD and then electrocuted me. They thought… Russian name, no memories, no documents… they thought I was a spy.”

Ben’s eyes blew wide. “Holy shit,” he exhaled. “Are you-- You look fine; I never would have thought…”

“I don’t think anyone really thought. Or noticed. It didn’t really leave lasting effects. Lasing  _ noticeable  _ effects, at least. There might have been things that I haven’t seen. And… well there’s one thing that… It killed you.”

“...What?” he looked confused and concerned, and she felt guilty, but she was too far in to stop now.

“I… I mean, you were already dead, technically. Ghostly, but dead. But when… you saved me. I was losing control of my powers and being…” she couldn’t bring herself to say the word tortured. She shook her head. “But you came to me in whatever mind palace I’d locked myself in and… you were the first person to tell me I wasn’t a monster. You did what I wish everyone else would have done when I lost control the first time. And then… it was my fault. You disappeared. Like… Like Thanos snapped you away.” She hated to be referencing a Marvel movie. It felt like she was making light of the situation, and she  _ wasn’t. _ It was just the most accurate analogy she could think to make. 

Ben didn’t seem to take the analogy too badly though, because he hardly reacted.

“You said I was already dead, though. I was meant to die years previous, when my Vanya saved me. Your Ben  _ did  _ die then. Anything afterwards… it’s all just gravy.”

Her Ben had said that too. It sent a pang through her stomach. 

“But it didn’t have to end,” Vanya insisted. “It shouldn’t have… Klaus could see him! The whole time! He could have… I don’t know. But it didn’t have to be over. And it was. Because--”

“Because the FBI were torturing you. That’s not your fault.”

“I should have had a handle on things!”

“Vanya, you’re allowed to need saving!”

And that was what it boiled down to, wasn’t it? She didn’t think that she deserved it. Under all the anger and resentment at being treated the way she had been for her entire childhood, there was no evidence that she had deserved anything otherwise. Even Allison’s attempts to connect with her could be attributed more to a guilty conscience over Claire than anything to do with her, and Luther’s apologies and everyone’s insistences that it was Dad that screwed them up, that screwed  _ her  _ up… they all made more sense as attempts to alleviate their own heavy hearts. 

But Ben didn’t have any guilt, not that she knew of. His attempt to get through to her hadn’t been a harmless platitude or more to get to know her better. It was a huge gesture, one that killed him, and it was the first time anyone had ever treated her like she deserved to need help. Like she was worth the sacrifice to themselves. 

And it didn’t align with anything she thought she knew about herself. She had spent her entire life training herself to take up as little space as possible, to never do anything to cause anyone else to have to do any labor on her behalf so that she would never have to attempt to justify an existence she couldn’t figure out how to justify. She’d never learned how to accept help, how to need it, and to be in a position to need saving…

He didn’t even do it for her! None of them… if she was honest with herself, she didn’t think they were trying to get through to her to save her. It wasn’t about saving her. It was about saving everyone else, about stopping her from destroying the world. 

All her life she’d dreamed of having powers, and now that she did, she couldn’t justify having them. They were wasted on her, and she  _ hated _ having them. She hated that becoming extraordinary came with that trade off, came with becoming so much more vulnerable.  _ Vulnerable _ . Having powers should have protected her, but it just meant she needed even more saving. 

If she didn’t have powers, would they have come? Would they have even known she needed saving? 

Would she have been  _ worth _ attempting to save?

It took her a minute to realize she was crying. It was only once Ben was hugging her that she registered the wet face, the heaving sobs, the hands that shook as they came up to clutch at him. 

“It should have been me,” she lamented, whimpering in half-breaths that did nothing to bring oxygen to her lungs. “It should have been me.”

It should have been her when they were sixteen. It should have never gotten to where it had. And it should have been her two days ago. 

“You know,” Ben was saying, stroking a hand up and down her back, “my Vanya thought that too. After she saved me, all those years ago. She kept saying things like, ‘It’s better this way,’ and ‘Better me than you.’ It wasn’t true. She thought it was. The dreams that she had, they pulled out specific moments that made her think that it was, but it  _ wasn’t _ .” He pulled away from her, and gripped her arms tightly in his hands. “It shouldn’t have been you. It shouldn’t have been me either-- I’m not saying it’s good that I died. But you dying wouldn’t have been any better. There is no universe in which it would have been.”

The tears intensified, and he pulled her back into his embrace. He started gently humming, and her brain filled in the lyrics. 

_...Only me beside you… Still you’re not alone… No one is alone… _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this EXTENDED headcanon about theater!person Vanya, and it includes Vanya and Ben being OBSESSED with "Into the Woods" as kids. If anyone's interested, let me know and I'll spill the DEETS on my tumblr: @tardisbadwolfrose. When I say extended, I mean EXTENDED. It includes Into the Woods, RENT, Hamilton, In the Heights, Dear Evan Hansen, Waitress, and a couple of others. It's wonderful. 
> 
> Again, I am extremely sorry about this taking as long as it did. I said I wouldn't try to defend myself, and I won't, but I'll give some explanation? I decided to apply for a Master's in Library Science, so I've been dealing with that, and then my brother got engaged. It doesn't account for that much of the wait, but accounts for some. It's not even like it's been that long, considering I def have stories I've gone YEARS without updating, but I still am not pleased with myself, so... yeah. 
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with me! Did you enjoy this latest installment? Please please let me know!! Hit me up down below, or come yell at me on tumblr! Until next time...


	6. This is Hell (Literal Hell)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diego gets some closure. Klaus definitely does not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Okay I have no excuses. I'm so sorry for how long this took. I don't know if you'll like it, and there definitely isn't as much as I'd hoped there'd be, but I got something put up, so that's good. 
> 
> Chapter title is from "We Don't Have to Dance" by Andy Black.

Diego would never admit it, but he thought the thing he’d missed most about living at home was hearing Vanya play. He used to sneak up to the rafters of the theater when Vanya had concerts and he’d close his eyes and listen. He knew Vanya would have gotten him a ticket if he wanted-- hell, she’d have been thrilled to know he came-- but then she’d have  _ known  _ that he cared, and he couldn’t subject himself to that. 

After the book, when seeing her still hurt, he stayed away from the concerts, but it was just six months later that he found himself back in the rafters. Like some preternatural force had drawn him there. And he went to every concert after that. He felt a little bit like a stalker, but it wasn’t really so new for him. 

The last time he’d heard her play was a couple of months before her concert that ended the world. Technically, he’d heard her  _ at  _ the concert, but he wasn’t able to appreciate it, focused as he was on  _ saving the goddamned world _ , so he didn’t think it counted. 

The familiar strains of that song from “Into the Woods” filled the halls of the Academy, and Diego, alone in the drawing room, relaxed into the couch and closed his eyes. He didn’t know which Vanya was playing, but it sounded better than he’d ever heard it done before, and he had to marvel at the difference being off those pills made. If it hadn’t already been evident in Vanya’s personality, it certainly was in the way she played. Or maybe Vanya 1 was just a better violin player than his Vanya. Though that didn’t seem likely. 

When the music stopped, he stayed put, waiting for it to start up again. When it didn’t, he was disappointed, and part of him wanted to go find Vanya and put in a request for a new song. Maybe that Beethoven piece she’d practiced for a month when Dad first gave it to her, back when they were kids. But that would mean admitting he’d been listening, and he had just a bit too much pride for that. 

It stayed quiet for a decently long time, long enough that Diego thought she might not be completely okay, and he was going to go check on her, when the music slowly started back up again, and he realized she must have been talking to someone.

The doorbell rang, and he looked around for someone to answer it, before he remembered he was alone and went to go do it instead. 

It felt like getting punched in the stomach. 

“Hey, babe!” Eudora greeted cheerily, then gave a puzzled look at his hair. “What, did Klaus put you in a wig or something?”

“Eudora…” It had been so long since he’d seen her, and even longer since she’d looked at him like that, like she loved him, like the very sight of him didn’t irritate her. 

It had been so long since he’d seen her alive. 

“Diego, what’s wrong?” She lifted a hand to his cheek, and he closed his eyes and grasped it, leaning into the touch for a moment, before reluctantly pushing her hand away.

“I’m… I’m not your Diego.” 

“Wha-- what do you mean?”

“There was this… I… time travel’s a bitch, and… I-I’m f-f-fr-from a different u-u-univ-v-erse.”

He cursed himself as the words got tripped up exiting his mouth, but Eudora didn’t acknowledge the stutter, waiting patiently for him to finish his sentence. 

“A different universe? What, like sci-fi, multiverse stuff?”

Mute, he nodded, and she pondered, before letting out an interested hum.

“You seem to know me, though. You have your own version of me?”

“Had…” he breathed. “You… I wasn’t th-th-there. You n-n-n-needed me, and I… I w-w-w-wasn’t th-th-there.”

“Diego…”

He heard someone coming downstairs behind him, and Diego 1 walked over, smiling at Eudora. He paused when his eyes slid over to Diego 2. It was weird to experience the look on his face from the outside, the wide-eyed “Oh shit, how do I explain this?” look. 

...He was sure his look wasn’t this  _ dopey _ though. He was positive. 

“Uh, Eudora,” Diego 1 started. “I-- I can explain…” he chuckled nervously.

“You already have,” Eudora told him. “Or, at least,  _ that  _ you did. Different universes, something about time travel…” she waved a hand in the air vaguely. “Deigo, don’t think I forgot what we were talking about,” she narrowed her eyes at Diego 2. “Is your me dead?”

If you asked him, Diego would tell you he wasn’t crying. Of course, he was, but he wouldn’t  _ tell _ you that. 

And yet, then Eudora was hugging him, and waving Diego 1 away, and there was a moment, a feeling deep in his gut, a  _ something _ that said that whatever happened between him and Eudora in his universe, as much as he resisted and insisted and pretended… god, but he was over her, wasn’t he? He really was. This was… he was  _ pleased _ , don’t get him wrong. He was happy to see her, and a part of him loved her, would always love her, but maybe it was Lila or maybe it was just all of their time apart, but he was over her. Diego had spent so long convinced that the second Eudora gave him a second chance, he’d be thrilled and happy and go back to her in a heartbeat but this…

He wasn’t jealous of his counterpart for being able to keep her, because he didn’t think he  _ wanted  _ to keep her, not anymore.

The guilt though, the guilt over having not been there for her when she needed him… he didn’t think that was going to go away anytime soon. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Dave may have been allowing his lap to be used as a pillow for his boyfriend, but he was watching the other Klaus carefully as he dumped a jigsaw puzzle out onto the floor, scattering pieces everywhere. Klaus’s face twisted as he watched a few fly underneath the couch, but he made no move to retrieve them. 

The long hair suited him, Dave thought. Better than Diego’s suited him, at least, or maybe he was just biased. And he looked older than his Klaus, older and sadder and so weighed down by whatever he’d experienced that he seemed shorter than his counterpart, despite Dave knowing they were exactly the same size. 

There was a snore from his lap, and Dave glanced down with a smirk. He carefully carded a hand through Klaus’s hair, wary to wake him. He could feel the other Klaus watching him, and he glanced up at him. The other man looked away as soon as their eyes met, picking out two puzzle pieces from the pile and throwing them back into the box. 

“What’s the puzzle supposed to be?” Dave asked. He could see the image on the side of the box, but he wanted to ask anyway, looking to start some conversation, any conversation, with this sad, lonely version of the man he loved so much.

“Bunch of doors,” Klaus reported, lifting the top of the box and displaying the image on it. “Stupid. But then, most puzzles kind of are.”

“Then why do one?”

“This is a house of nightmares. There isn’t much else to do.”

Dave was unimpressed, but didn’t argue. It wasn’t worth the effort. He looked back down, but could still feel Klaus's eyes on him. 

They'd been silent for a few minutes before Dave spoke again. 

"So how are you handling all this? Are you okay?"

Klaus grinned, but there was no good cheer in his eyes. "It’s hilarious," he dodged. "I don't know which Diego is going to snap first, but there’s gonna be a fight and I’d definitely pay to watch it.”

“I don’t know,” Dave mused. “I think they might be a little better about keeping their heads about them than you give them credit for.”

“There’s no way. There are two Deigos, two Luthers, and quadruple the potential for disaster. It’s going to happen.”

Dave smiled, and the expression made Klaus look like someone had died. 

...Maybe somebody had.

“Do I exist?” Dave asked, after another pause. “Where you’re from, I mean. In your world. Do I… Do you have me?”

Klaus looked like he wanted to pretend he didn’t hear him, but the room was too quiet for that to work, and Dave could tell that he knew that. “I… I really don’t want to talk about it. Can we not? Let’s not.”

Klaus stood abruptly and made a vague gesture at the pile of puzzle pieces on the ground. 

“Don’t touch my puzzle. I’m almost done.”

Dave couldn’t follow Klaus out of the room without displacing the sleeping Klaus on his lap, but that was okay. He felt like Klaus’s reaction was all the answer he really needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone yell at me if I don't have more up in a week. This was meant to be longer and have an actual conversation between Klaus and Dave but I could NOT make things happen. I've been working on this chapter for almost a month. It's ridiculous. 
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed! Let me know, please please please! I'm hurrying to put this up before Rosh Hashana starts, and nothing makes me happier than turning my phone on after a holiday and seeing all of your comments!
> 
> Happy Jewish New Year y'all, and see you in the next update!


	7. Hey Anybody (Know the Bitter Side of Death and Glory)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This Ben is not his Ben. Maybe that's not a bad thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Blushes furiously* I FINISHED IT FINALLY!
> 
> Chapter title is from "Not Mad Enough" by Smith and Myers.

“You should have talked to him.”

Klaus looked up from the glass of whiskey he’d been contemplating and found Ben looking unimpressed in the doorway. 

“You know, I came into this room because I thought I’d be left alone.”

“You should have known better,” Ben remarked. He came in and made his way to the bar, pouring his own healthy helping of whiskey into a tumbler and then coming over and settling into the armchair across from him.

And that was  _ weird, _ seeing Ben drinking. There were distinct differences between the different incarnations of them, but the differences between the ghostly Ben he remembered and this Ben seemed to take the cake. He was supposed to be yelling at him to stop abusing various substances, not abusing said substances himself.

“Don’t you know?” he said. “I don’t know much of anything. Pure idiot, that’s me.”

Ben scoffed. “Just because you have approximately two brain cells and they are both usually too busy working out a way to jump ship like the rest of them to actually be useful doesn’t mean you’re an idiot. You know that too, you just keep saying it to avoid taking responsibility for things. So don’t be an asshole and answer the question.”

“You didn’t ask me any question.”

“Fair. What didn’t you talk to Dave?”

Klaus tasted something sour and elected to ignore the question.

“Looks like you’re nosy in any universe.”

“That’s also not an answer.” Ben sipped at the whiskey and seemed to relax back into his seat as the drink made its way to his stomach. 

“Well maybe I just don’t want to  _ give  _ you an answer. Did you ever consider that, Mr. Brain Cells?”

He really didn’t. He had a tactic for dealing with situations that might make him  _ feel  _ things, and that was to avoid them and, failing that, joke his way through them. This whole Dave thing was too close to avoid and too hard to joke about, especially on the tail of his complete failure to stop him from dying, but that didn’t mean he had to seek out these situations, or comply with everyone else’s attempts to get him to.

_ Everyone _ , of course, meaning Dave and Ben. He thought they were representative of the whole though. Representative enough, at least. 

“I know you don’t want to give me an answer, Klaus. That doesn’t change that you should probably talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about! Okay, well actually there’s probably a lot to talk about but I don’t think I actually can talk about it so we aren’t going to. Can’t we just… pretend everything’s fine? Please?”

Ben smirked and took another sip of whiskey. “I mean, yeah. Definitely. But it’s not healthy. And it’s just gonna hurt you more in the long run.”

Klaus frowned. ‘Well, I’m no stranger to self destruction tactics, and so I’m going to gladly take that option, thank you very much.”

“Suit yourself,” Ben inclined his head, then downed the rest of his whiskey. He didn’t move, however, continuing to carefully watch Klaus. 

It was unnerving. And altogether unwelcome. It reminded him too much of  _ his  _ Ben. The dead Ben. The twice-dead Ben, really. And he wasn’t a fan of that, especially now that he’d never see his own Ben again. So many times he’d wished he could stop dealing with his nagging, but he never wanted it to stop this way. 

It didn’t look like Ben was going to leave any time soon, but Klaus wasn’t going to break just because Ben insisted on staring at him. If he was going to tell anyone about all of this…

It took two swallows to finish his drink, and then he was standing. Ben watched him get up.

“Where are you going?”

“The little boy’s room. Do I have your permission?”

“You’re lying. But whatever. You don’t need my permission Klaus. I just want to make sure you’re not going to hurt yourself.”

Klaus smirked. “Oh, it’s gonna hurt. But not in a bad way. I hope.”

_______________________________________

Allison’s hair was back to its natural curl, cut to the chin and framing her face on one side and shaved completely away above one ear. She looked happy with it, confident and lighter, like she was shedding a person she wasn’t. Klaus liked it. 

She and Vanya were laughing as they walked back into the house, and Klaus couldn’t tell what it was about, which really bugged him. There was nothing he hated more than missing out on the joke. 

Okay, so there were a lot of things he hated more than missing out on the joke, but none of them were particularly applicable to the situation at hand. 

“Allison! Love the haircut. Really brings out your cheekbones. Mind if I borrow Bizzaro Vanya for a minute?”

Vanya frowned. “I thought we agreed that I was Vanya 1?”

“How boring,” Klaus shrugged. He held out an elbow for her to take, and Vanya linked her arm through his, sending a farewell grin towards Allison as Klaus whisked her away. 

“What’s going on, Klaus?” 

“Ben’s trying to get me to talk about my feelings. He’s such an ass.”

Vanya squinted. “I’m not sure that’s really ‘ass’ behavior. He’s trying to help.”

“I don’t know what kind of a person your universe’s Klaus is, but I think I hate him if he’s convinced Ben forcing me to talk about my feelings is a good idea.”

“He hasn’t. Ben’s just ridiculously optimistic about this stuff. And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to talk to Ben about this stuff.”

“Just because you won’t judge me doesn’t mean he won’t. Actually, I think he probably will. In my experience, the Benster has the most judgmental temperament I’ve ever met.”

“Maybe your Ben was different than ours is.”

Vanya was right, but that didn’t make him want to confide in him any more.

“What was he asking you about anyway?”

He was silent for a minute before he realized that he’d kind of already told Vanya all there was to know about this situation anyway.

“Dave. I sort of… I left in a bit of a hurry earlier, when I was stuck in a room with your version of him. I don’t know how Ben even heard about it. Maybe he was eavesdropping or something.”

“Or maybe Dave was worried and asked Ben to talk to you. The two of you are thick as thieves in this universe. When you moved out at 18, he went with you, and you’ve been roommates since. I don’t think there’s anything you don’t tell each other. Dave knows that. Maybe he just expected things to be similar where you’re from. Maybe he thought if anyone could get through to you, Ben could. And maybe Ben thought he could get through to you too.”

Klaus supposed things weren’t all too different in his world. They hadn’t been together by choice, he and Ben, but they’d been pretty inseparable. Although, did it really count? 

But there  _ were  _ differences, and those differences seemed to  _ make  _ all the difference. Maybe this Ben was less judgy, and maybe this Klaus and Ben were super close, and maybe… maybe that’s the point. 

But Klaus  _ wasn’t _ that Klaus. He was from a world where Ben died and was tied to his hip ever since. He was from a world where none of them stayed close, stayed in touch, a world where his only companion had been a dead brother who was so damaged from having died at 16 that he resented everything Klaus had become, all the life he thought Klaus was wasting. 

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? His Ben was  _ bitter _ . Bitter that he’d died, bitter that he was doomed to watch his brother systematically destroy everything good he had, bitter because while the two of them had always been close, that didn’t mean Ben wanted to be able to talk to no one else for the rest of eternity.

This Ben, he’d never gotten bitter and burnt. He’d had the chance to move out and become his own person. He hadn’t watched Klaus self destruct in every conceivable way. Even if they started off in the same place, they’d ended up in very different ones. 

But even if Klaus  _ could  _ trust this Ben, even if he wouldn’t be judged or anything, that didn’t mean Klaus wanted to  _ talk  _ to him. 

The entire time, he’d only be thinking about what Ben would never get a chance to be. 

Without Klaus realizing it Vanya had guided them down to the kitchen and pushed him to sit in a chair at the table. The room was empty except for Grace, who was whisking something in a bowl with a placid grin on her face. Vanya moved around her almost effortlessly, in some delicate dance Klaus couldn’t believe they both knew all the steps to. 

It tracked when he thought about it. He knew Vanya had spent some time in the kitchen with Mom when they were kids, when she wasn’t practicing violin. Dad thought it would be good for her to learn some kitchen skills, had assumed she’d need to be able to cook in the future. The rest of them could stay in the house forever. Preferably would, actually. But Vanya, he’d thought, would move out eventually. Besides which, Klaus thought Dad had wanted to turn Vanya into a little household assistant, like some sort of house elf or something, in case she did stick around, and that would free up Grace for other things. 

He supposed they must be used to working in the kitchen next to each other, although it didn’t look like Vanya was preparing anything close to what Mom was whipping up. 

It was a few minutes before Vanya was sliding a mug of something hot in front of him. He sniffed, and fruity smelling steam cleared a path up his nostrils. He took a tentative sip.

“Tea? You made me tea?” 

“I made us tea,” Vanya corrected, sliding into a chair opposite him with her own steaming mug. “I hope it’s how you like it. I made it how my Klaus usually likes it, but I don’t know if you’ve developed different tastes or something.” 

“Its-- no, its fine. Great, even.” And it was. Sweet and fruity and likely leagues more palatable than whatever crap Vanya had in her cup. And-- “Did you put alcohol in it?”

She turned red. “Brandy. You usually manage to slip it in anyway. I figured I should save you the trouble.”

Klaus beamed. Save him the trouble indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I don't hate canon Ben. I love him, actually. This is just where the chapter wanted to go.
> 
> I don't know if I'll have moreup in a timely manner. I've decided that depending on how quickly I get more done, I might pause on updating until I have all of the chapters finished. I'm sorry for making y'all wait so long, and I'm sorry this chapter might not be long enough to make up for that. I hope you can forgive me. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought! Are there any conversations you still want to see happen? I know I have to deal with Luther at some point-- I've just been struggling to put him into the story. And when Ask Yourself!Allison comes home, some shits bound to go down. Anything in particular y'all wanna see? Let me know!! Please please please!


	8. Caught in the Middle While You're Running From Coast to Coast (That's All She Wrote)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire meets Dave. Allison meets herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! I updated within the week! Are you proud or what?
> 
> Chapter title is from "Coast to Coast" by Smith and Myers.

“Mommy? Mommy, are you even listening to me?” 

Allison turned away from the cab window to face her daughter. “I’m sorry, Claire. I got distracted. What did you say?”

“I was  _ asking  _ you why we were coming back here  _ again.” _ Claire was looking petulant and cranky, and Allison was dreading the post-plane ride, tired crankiness that was already starting to develop. 

“I thought you’d be happy to see your aunt and uncles again.”

“Of  _ course _ I’m happy, Mommy. I’m just con _ fused _ . We just left a few days ago and now we’re already back? That’s weird. You’re being weird. Why are you being weird, Mommy?”

Allison sighed heavily. “I-- Claire, I’m not being weird. I’m just… just a little worried. We’re back because Auntie Vanya asked me to come back and I knew you’d want to see everyone.”

“Why did Auntie Vanya ask you to come back? Did she miss me? It’s because she missed me, isn’t it?” 

She sounded sure and confident, and Allison decided not to challenge that confidence. It wasn’t like she had any other ideas for what could possibly be happening, anyway. 

Goodness, but she had a precocious daughter, didn’t she?

“She missed you very much, Claire. There’s probably something else going on though, and I need you not to freak out if there’s something weird happening okay?”

So much for not challenging anything.

Claire narrowed her eyes. “I’m not gonna freak out. Don’t be silly. You’re being silly.”

“Well, which is it? Am I being silly or weird?”

“Both. You’re being both. It’s fine. I love you anyway.”

Allison raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for your support, sweetheart.”

“You’re welcome. So what kind of weird stuff might be happening?”

God, she wished she knew.

___________________________________

The house loomed cold and uninviting when the cab pulled up in front of it, and Allison couldn’t suppress the cold shiver that spread goosebumps over her arms. 

_ He’s not there, _ she reminded herself.  _ He’s not anywhere.  _

She took hold of her purse and carry-on, grabbed the door handle, and let herself out of the car, reaching in once she was outside to pull Claire out behind her. She traded a roll of cash with the driver in return for the duffel bag he’d pulled from the trunk.

Claire skipped ahead of her as the cab pulled away behind her, and Allison muttered a curse and raced to catch up to her rambunctious daughter. The girl had already pressed the doorbell several times by the time she got there. Allison hitched her bags up higher on her shoulder and pulled Claire away from the door with her free hand. 

It was Luther who came to the door, and he looked just a little bit confused.

“Why didn’t you call someone? We would’ve picked you up from the airport.”

“It’s fine. I figured you were busy, what with whatever crazy thing that’s happening that Vanya called me about.”

Luther winced. “It’s crazy, but it’s not bus--” 

He was cut off when Claire wriggled her hand free of Allison’s and launched herself at him. 

“Uncle Luther!”

“Hi, Claire,” Luther lifted her onto his shoulders while she giggled, and moved back to let Allison into the house. “Did you enjoy the plane ride?”

“I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and goldfish crackers and a whole bottle of apple juice and I got to watch  _ both  _ Frozen movies  _ and _ Dumbo  _ and _ the nice flight attendant lady gave me a  _ coloring _ book and I colored in the _ whole  _ thing, and the lady thought I colored so good and was so good on the plane that she gave me this special sticker that says… Mommy, what does it say?”

“I was a first class behaver,” Allison quoted with a wry grin. 

Luther chuckled and didn’t react to Claire’s hands using his hair as a handhold as they started moving. 

“Why don’t you go put your stuff up in your room while I go tell everyone you’re here?”

“I wanna do it!” Claire insisted. She lifted her hands to cup around her mouth like a bullhorn. “I’m he-ere!” She screamed. Luther winced. 

Allison did the same while she nodded. “Sounds good,” she said aloud, before mouthing, “Good luck.”

She could hear Luther’s chuckle as the two of them led the way to the second staircase, the one still standing, and up the stairs. They separated at the top of them, Allison heading towards her bedroom and Luther going the other way. 

The first thing she saw when she opened the door to her room was a person laying on her bed. The second thing she saw was that the person was  _ her. _

Her doppelganger sat up, looking confused, and then worried, and Allison let out a short scream and slammed the door shut, turning around and leaning her back against it, breathing hard. 

Luther came charging down the hall, Claire still on his shoulders. Someone else ran up to, someone large, larger even than Luther. A second glance told her it  _ was  _ Luther. Luther’s head on a body too big for him, and she looked back and forth between her brother and the stranger with his face. 

Luther didn’t seem surprised at all to see the larger him, and Claire barely even reacted, seeming to accept the clone of her uncle without a second thought. 

Allison wished it were that easy. 

“You have three seconds to explain before I go back in there and rip the head off of the lady in my bed.”

“Last night, we were all in the drawing room when alternate universe versions of ourselves arrived, and they’re staying here until we can find a way to send them back,” Luther said as much as he could as quickly as he could, and it took Allison a few seconds to process. 

By the time Allison had come close to understanding the implications, her doppelganger-- alternate universe version? Twin?-- had opened the door and came to tentatively stand next to her, looking apologetic and nervous. 

Now that Allison was looking for differences, she was disappointed to find that there weren’t many. Or… well, any, that she noticed, at least. Except for the hair, and she hated to say that the other her had a better haircut, so she  _ refused _ , choosing instead to stop looking so closely at her. 

Claire had a wondrous look on her face. “So now I have  _ two  _ Mommies?” 

Allison couldn’t tell if she was pleased or annoyed by the new development, and she took another quick glance at her twin to gauge her reaction. 

There was a deep sadness and mourning in her eyes, one Allison recognized from looking in the mirror after Ben had died. She was watching Claire, watching her like she could drink up her presence like water, but also like she was trying to stop herself from actually appreciating she was there, and all Allison could think was  _ her Claire’s dead, isn’t she? _

“Better than that,” the smaller Luther said, obviously catching sight of the other Allison’s face and trying to distract Claire from it. “You have two of every aunt and uncle too. Except Uncle Ben, but--” He stopped. Allison kind of wanted to address it, but the bigger Luther was talking before she could.

“Hi, Claire. It’s nice to meet you-- this you!” It seemed he was self-correcting, trying to cover something up. 

Claire caught it, and looked at him suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘this me?’ I’m the only me there is.”

“The-- where I’m from, where your other Mom is from, she has a you too,” Luther tried to explain. Claire didn’t look convinced, but he was saved from having to explain himself further when her siblings and their doppelgangers started streaming into the hallway, gathering from inside other rooms and from downstairs. 

There were two Vanyas, looking exactly the same except one had her hair tied back. And there were the two Diegos, one of them obviously the new one, with long hair and a grown-out beard. Only one Eudora came with them, though, and she was holding hands with the familiar Diego, and so she figured it was hers. There was Klaus, holding hands with Dave, but there was another Klaus a few feet away, with hair that hung to his shoulders and a goatee Allison thought didn’t quite suit him. Quentin looked the same as ever, but right next to him was a thirteen year old kid, and it took Allison a second, but finally she recognized him as Quentin as well, just sixteen years younger. 

She scanned the group assembled before her, but it was indeed only one Ben that she saw, one Ben that she assumed to be her own universe’s. 

It took her a minute to account for the differences between the foreign versions of themselves and the familiar, between Quentin’s age, Luther’s appearance, Ben’s absence, the lack of a second Dave or Eudora, even the other Allison’s obvious pain at seeing Claire, but then Allison remembered Vanya’s visions, the descriptions she’d given of Quentin leaving at thirteen, Ben dying at sixteen, the accident that almost killed Luther, Diego and Eudora breaking up, Allison rumor--

_ Oh. _

She felt kind of bad about dwelling on the other hers plight the most when their Ben was  _ dead _ , but she remembered the offense she’d taken at Vanya’s warning, the way, even after she’d admitted Vanya was right, she was still kind of angry that she’d been warned every time she had the impulse to stop Claire’s tantrums in their tracks and use her powers, because it was  _ massively  _ irritating to not be able to get what she wanted as easily as she usually did. She remembered it all and to see the consequences of Vanya’s vision coming true in front of her… She’d been so incredibly lucky, hadn’t she?

“Did someone scream?” Eudora asked.

“I did,” Allison responded, tearing her eyes away from the other her and glaring at the Vanyas instead. She couldn’t tell which one was which, but she sent the look in their direction anyway, figuring the one who responded was hers. “A little warning of what to expect would have been nice.”

The Vanya with her hair up winced. “I didn’t want to get into it on the phone. I figured I’d explain over the car ride to the house. But then, I thought I was going to pick you up from the airport.”

“Yeah, I took a cab. I thought things were gonna be nuts here. I didn’t imagine two of almost everyone nuts, mind you.”

It was then that Claire must have decided she was tired of not being the center of attention, because she piped up. “Excuse me,” she said, annoyed, “but I just got here and no one except Uncle Luther and Uncle Luther have said hello to me. Didn’t you miss me?” 

There was silence for a beat, before pretty much everyone cracked a grin and her Klaus reached up to take Claire from Luther’s shoulders. “Claire Bear!” he exclaimed, pulling her to his chest for a hug. “Come meet your new uncle, Dave! He’s been waiting for you to get here.”

Klaus threw a wink over at Allison while he put Claire on the ground and led her up to Dave. 

She eyed him critically while he smiled down at her patiently. “Hi, Claire. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, glancing between Klaus and Dave and bringing a hand up to her chin to copy the thinking face she thought was a mandatory part of making up her mind. “Are you my Uncle now because you’re dating Uncle Klaus?”

Dave nodded hesitantly. 

“Are you a good new uncle or an evil step uncle who’s gonna be mean to Uncle Klaus and then try and kill him to steal all his money?”

Allison’s eyes widened, and she rushed to apologize for her daughter, to explain that Patrick let her watch  _ Addam’s Family Values  _ while she’d been here last, and now she thought every new person she met was gonna be like Debbie, but Dave chuckled, relaxing, and bent to kneel on the ground before Claire. 

“You love your Uncle Klaus a lot, huh?” 

“Well, duh,” Claire put her hands on her hips, “he’s my  _ uncle. _ ”

“Well that’s a very good thing, because I love him a lot too, and I solemnly swear that I will never be mean to him on purpose or try to kill him or do anything that might hurt him.”

Claire held out a hand. “Do you pinky promise? You can’t break a pinky promise, or else monsters are gonna come eat you in your sleep.”

Dave wrapped a pinky around hers and winked. “I  _ triple  _ pinky promise.”

Claire gasped. “A  _ triple _ pinky promise? You really  _ do  _ love him!” She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he beamed and hugged her. “Hi, Uncle Dave. It’s very nice to meet you.”

And well, if Allison was sure of anything about this trip, she knew it was worth it just for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I wanted to make the chapter title from a Little Mix song because LITTLE MIX HAS NEW MUSIC OUT Y'ALL!! but none of the lyrics fit. Having said that... STREAM SWEET MELODY Y'ALL!
> 
> 2) Claire is just the cutest. She's got such attitude. I love her. 
> 
> 3) Yes, Claire has watched Addams Family Values. I was gonna make a reference to something Disney but I gave them one shoutout in this chapter already and Addams Family Values fits so much better. 
> 
> 4) So, according to my research, flights do have stuff like coloring books for little kids available upon request. It depends on the airline, and it might be outdated, but I liked the idea so much that I put it in. IDK if the stickers have ANY source at all, but I thought it was cute. 
> 
> 5) Yes, Emmy's hair is better than Allison's. No, I will not be accepting criticism.
> 
> 6) I'm hoping to wrap this up in the next few chapters. Once I do, I know I said I wanted to write a TUA/Magicians crossover, and I WILL, but I think I might put up the Vanya sickfic I've been working on first. I got stuck at one point, but I'm planning on going back to it and fixing some stuff, and I have enough written that I can start putting that up while I'm working on it. 
> 
> 7) I have discovered that I, apparently, cannot spell doppelganger. To be fair, who'd actually expect the E to come BEFORE the L?
> 
> 8) Apparently, duffel also has the e before the l. I'm done with the English language, honestly.
> 
> 9) If anyone else has watch Julie and the Phantoms, come talk to me! Specifically about my bb boy Reggie and the disaster bisexual he is, and also the OT3 potential between him, Luke and Julie. BC Julie and Luke is cute and all but Luke and Reggie have CHEMISTRY and I'm a slut for OT3s really. 
> 
> 10) Here is the mandatory "please leave a comment" note. I know a lot of ppl don't read these notes, and even fewer have the patience to log in to comment or even just type one up, but anon commenting is OPEN and I'm DYING for an ounce of validation so like... talk to me? Please? Anyone? I'm so lonely HELP.


	9. I Was Searching for Happiness (I Was Using You to Fill up My Loneliness)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison plays pretend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Oh, it's been a normal amount of time since I've updated.  
> Me: *Sees the last updated date*  
> Me: realizes it's been over a month  
> Me: ... well shit. 
> 
> I'M SORRY! 
> 
> Chapter title is from "Happiness" by Little Mix (AKA GO STREAM CONFETTI NOW BECAUSE IT'S A NEW LITTLE MIX ALBUM AND I'M T H R I L L E D!!)

The was a whirlwind of movement as Vanya 1 sequestered herself away with Allison 1 in the latter’s bedroom to fully explain as much as she could while Allison unpacked and everyone else just sort of… drifted, going back to whatever it was they’d been doing. Quentin and Five were both grumbling about unnecessary interruptions, but Luther 2 didn’t miss the way Quentin seemed to be smiling softly despite himself, nor the way he’d paused to high five Claire as he passed by.

All of the Hargreeves from this universe had done so, actually. Claire was glowing with the attention that was being heaped onto her by her uncles, and despite a disgruntled look she aimed in the direction of Allison’s bedroom and her mother and aunt hidden away inside, she seemed more than happy to latch herself to Klaus and Dave. 

Luther knew his Allison well enough to see the longing in her eyes. He knew she wanted to go with Claire, to go steal her for herself and be reunited with the person she loved most in the world, and he could also see the way she was holding herself back, the hatred in her eyes as she refused to let herself go to her. 

Before he could resolve to go over and try and comfort her, Allison was already coming over to him. 

“Are you okay?” Luther asked her, and she winced.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, so at least I was prepared to see her. I didn’t think it would hurt so much to see her with them though. Her uncles. I thought I was doing the right thing, keeping her to myself. I thought… Whatever. I just… but things were different with us, weren’t they?”

The end of her little ramble wasn’t very cohesive, but Luther caught her drift anyway. 

“They were…” Luther said hesitantly. Allison didn’t register his tone and kept talking. 

“I mean, you were on the moon by the time she was old enough to know who you were. Diego and I… it’s not like we were ever particularly close, especially not after we left home, and Klaus wasn’t really the best influence to have her around. And Vanya… I was a shitty sister. I barely remembered she existed half the time. And it was right after the book, and I… god I hated her for that. And I… I had my own life, you know? I was happy on my own, trying to forget where I came from, everything…”

“I don’t know how they managed it, if I’m honest,” Luther admitted. “Even with Five and Ben still around… it’s not like our lives took such wildly different tracks…”

“Unless they did.”

That puzzled him. “Would they have? I can’t… I can’t imagine--”

“I’ve been talking to Vanya a lot. We had time while I was getting my hair done and while she was taking her groceries back to her apartment. When Vanya saved Ben, she got hurt doing it. And that helped heal things a little bit, point out to us just how alone she felt, just how much… she thought it would have been better if she’d died instead of him. Luckily she didn’t, but she thought that even if she had, it wouldn’t have been a bad thing because she was more expendable. So that was a bit of a wake up call. She had a dream about the book also, which stopped her from publishing it, and she went to Quentin for help. And that… it helped, because he was able to convince her to call a therapist, and make friends outside of us, and reach out more, and despite swearing him to secrecy, he still reached out to Ben and Klaus, who reached out to her… so any distance between all of us, it got nullified. And after they averted your accident, and you moved out…”

“I get it,” Luther said finally. 

He wondered what it would have been like for him, had he had a support network. He’d been incredibly lonely once everyone had moved out, bored and unstimulated. Never had he considered following in their footsteps, but he’d resented them for leaving him on his own. He had a duty, he thought, and so did they, and now that they’d neglected theirs, he definitely couldn’t do the same, couldn’t let his father down. 

He was smarter now; he knew that. He knew his father was no one to look up to, that the mission he’d spent his entire life focused on was just the machinations of an old man who didn’t understand what a self fulfilling prophecy was. And he knew better who  _ he  _ was, and why he’d fallen so easily for his father’s rhetoric. He understood better the drive to please, the insistence on his father’s omniscience, the reasons he was willing to turn on his siblings if only for a kernel of approval. He understood it all much more. 

That didn’t make him feel any better about it. 

Seeing what could have been, the relationship between the other him and his siblings… he hated what he’d done to himself and to his own relationships. He hated that he’d spent so long alone, and it was all mostly his own fault. 

“Stop that,” Allison insisted. Luther glanced up at her, barely having realized that he’d turned his gaze down. She was giving him a sympathetic but firm look. “You have that ‘this is all my fault’ look on your face. Stop it.”

“It is, though,” he sighed. “No one else made me isolate myself--”

“That’s not the point. You made your own decisions, Luther, but something else that Vanya mentioned that makes a  _ lot  _ of sense is that people make stupid decisions when they’re lonely. When they lack support. It’s why our Vanya wrote that damn book, why I rumored Claire, why you insisted on staying loyal to a man who didn’t give a shit about us… It was your decision to stay, but no one’s going to hold that against you. And you shouldn’t either.”

He shook his head. She made sense, but still... “There was a lot that I fucked up though--”

“And yeah, that was shitty, Luther. I’m not gonna tell you that locking Vanya up and refusing to listen to her, that getting drunk and high and going on a self destructive spiral after everything, that it was fine and that it didn’t hurt people, and that you had nothing to apologize over, because that’s just not true, and you  _ know  _ that. And you apologized. And you’re trying to be better. And that’s  _ not the point. _ You just… people make shitty decisions because of loneliness and childhood abuse and if you keep acting like it’s all your fault and you’re an awful person, you’re gonna keep making shitty decisions and you’re never going to get better because you’re acting like you don’t have the capacity for better. You’re not an awful person. You’re a normal person, a good person, who  _ needs to do better. _ Who had circumstances outside of his control influence what he did and the choices he made and now needs to undo the damage that had been done so he can get better.”

Luther smiled tightly and nodded. He knew she was right. He’d be an idiot to think otherwise, and while he was nowhere near the smartest person he knew-- hell, he was probably the stupidest in the family-- he wasn’t an idiot. He thought. He hoped. 

He  _ wasn’t _ an idiot, right?

“Okay,” he said finally, and then after a pause, repeated, “okay.” He didn’t know what else to say so he just repeated himself again. 

Alison smirked. “Okay.”

“Hey, maybe it’d be a good idea to go see Claire,” he suggested. He didn’t think before the words came out of his mouth, but once he’d said it, he felt sure of it.

“Luther…”

“No, really. It’s not… It might not be your Claire, but seeing a Claire could be good for you. It might… I don’t know, maybe… you know what? Never mind, I--”

“No, no, Luther, you…” she sighed heavily and shook her head, “You’ve got a point. I’m gonna… Yeah. I’ll go see her.” 

He smiled, a real, loose smile. “Okay. I hope… I really hope it works out okay for you.”

“Me too.”

Allison started to make her way past him, heading in the same direction Klaus and Dave had taken Claire, but she paused as she got to his shoulder. 

“The other us… The other Allison and Luther, they never… had what we--”

“I guess not,” Luther shrugged. He had no way of knowing, himself, but he supposed it was something Allison might have picked up on.

“When did it start, for us? When did you realize--”

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t remember realizing he had feelings for her, only feeling like he had something with her he’d never had with their other siblings. “I’m not sure I ever did.”

Allison looked taken aback, and he rushed to clarify. “I just mean that… look, Allison. I never had much experience with love and romance and… and all that. So I didn’t know what to look for, what to feel. I just knew that you and I got along better than any of the rest of us, that we had… something. Something special. And I guess maybe, through all of it… Maybe I mistook that for…”

“Hm.” She looked like she understood. 

“Did you…”

“I don’t know. I think maybe… I don’t know if I’m saying this because I know about your feelings or because it’s how I felt but… but I think maybe I was so in love with the idea of being special that I didn’t really pay attention to where it was coming from or how. It… it was different with Ray, you know? Patrick and I, we got together mostly because of Claire, and because I’m a sweet talker and said all the right things. I don’t know if I love him or if it was just convenient. And with you… Well, you know. But with Ray-- I couldn’t sweet talk him or rumor him into loving me. I couldn’t convince him to care. And there was no situation, no Claire or one-night stand… it wasn’t easy or convenient… I think I thought I loved you. I thought I loved Patrick too. But after Ray… I love you, Luther, but I don’t--”

“Me too.” He smiled, relieved, and Allison returned the grin. She patted him on the arm, looked down, and walked on. 

Luther looked around the empty hallway he’d suddenly found himself in. He was all talked out, but he hated being alone. He’d spent enough time alone. 

… Maybe Luther 1 was free. 

___________________________________________________________________________

Allison walked away from her conversation with Luther with an ache in her chest that was suspiciously Ray shaped. 

What would he have thought of Claire? Would they have gotten along? Would they have gotten close? 

She’d never really considered having kids with Ray. The conversation had somehow never come up, and every time the thought came to her, she missed Claire even more, so she stopped trying to think about it. They hadn’t been trying for kids, but it wasn’t like they were being safe. Kids probably would have come up eventually, but with them being in completely different decades-- universes, even-- it had become a non-issue. 

And yet, she couldn’t get the image of the two greatest loves of her life together out of her head. She pictured Ray holding a baby, holding  _ their  _ baby, and the baby in his arms in her head was Claire. 

She hadn’t let herself think about missing him since they’d left, but it hit her in the face, and suddenly she was blinking back tears. 

She passed an open door, and the sounds of laughing came from inside. She looked, and she found Klaus and Dave both wearing feather boas and tutus, and Claire in a crown, giggling as they bowed in front of her. 

“The people of Teddyopolis beseech you, my liege. Please, what are we to do about the dragon in yonder castle?” Dave was struggling to hold a smile back as he spoke.

Claire pretended to wonder for a minute, then caught sight of Allison in the doorway. 

“Mommy!” she exclaimed. “Short hair, different Mommy is my best knight, and she is going to slay the dragon! Won’t you, Mommy?”

Allison grinned, and accepted the pool noodle Klaus offered her. She put on her worst British accent and responded, “But of course, your majesty. I would be honored.”

She threw herself into playing pretend with Klaus, Dave, and Claire so she could ignore the pain of remembering Ray. She hadn’t done it in so long, and she missed being able to pretend to be someone else for a while, for a camera or just for her daughter. 

She realized though, a good half hour after they started, that at some point, she’d realized that this wasn’t her daughter. There were similarities of course, in their stubbornness and spunk, but their mannerisms were different, just a little bit, and some of her instincts were foreign to Allison. She recognized bits of her aunt and uncles in Claire, and Allison took note of the fluttering of Claire’s fingers as her hand dangled at her side, and the way the movement reminded her of Vanya as a kid, practicing her violin fingering even when the instrument was locked away in her room. 

And somehow, it helped. She knew the differences were because of a life Allison had never let her Claire live, but at some point she’d stopped thinking of the girl in front of her as her daughter but a little bit different, and started thinking of her as Claire, a precocious little girl who reminded her of her daughter. And the reminders hurt, but she still felt a little bit of the open wound losing Claire had left heal. 

It wasn’t perfect, but it was a nice place to live for a little while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping for another two chapters and then that's it. I'd like to be done before the new year. It probably won't happen, but one can hope. 
> 
> On a different note, who else is V proud of Elliot Page right now? If s3 Vanya starts using he/them pronouns... I mean I'm there for it. They can start a club with Klaus. It'd be tres cute. 
> 
> So what'd you think of Allison and Luther's conversation? What about me unwriting the incest storyline bc it's necessary? WHO ELSE IS BOTH GLAD SPN IS OVER AND DISAPPOINTED AT THE ENDING??? (Was that on topic? no. Was it necessary? Absolutely.)
> 
> Please leave a comment! Give me feedback! I need it to L I V E


	10. Was There Something That I Missed? (Was Happiness Within Me the Whole Time?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya talks to herself, Five doesn't have a sense of humor, and everyone takes a dive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...why yes, I am alive. Hello. All that's left is the epilogue! Tada!
> 
> Chapter title is from "Dust and Ashes" from "Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812"

It felt like years that Five had been staring at the inner workings of the briefcase, and still they weren’t revealing any hidden depths that might tell him how to get home. He was running out of ideas for what to prod or poke, and running out of books to try and learn things from. 

Quentin threw a book aside in a huff and ran a frustrated hand through his already mussed hair. “Thirty books on theoretical time travel and not a single one mentions the multiverse theory? This is getting ridiculous.”

“Never let it be said that our father really knew how to be  _ helpful _ ,” Five mumbled. There was a wire he couldn’t make much sense of, and he fiddled with it, ignoring the sparks that singed his fingertips. 

Quentin looked at him. “Any leads on the technology?”

“Have I jumped up and shouted about a Eureka moment?”

He grimaced. “Point taken.” He picked up a new book and tossed it back on the table after glancing at the cover without even bothering to open it. `

Five, meanwhile, had started trying to come up with a new plan. 

“What happened to the Commission here, in this universe?”

Quentin looked up from the new book he was perusing and winced. “Do you mean after they sent an agent to manipulate Vanya into starting the apocalypse, and then another two agents to try a different method?”

Five leveled him with a blank glare, and Quentin sighed. “Well, Leonard and another one-- Cha Cha maybe?-- they’re dead, and so is the ‘Handler,’ whoever that is. One of them, Hazel, he got away, but he also didn’t seem all too interested in hurting us in the first place, so we let it slide. I don’t know anything about the actual Commission though. They’re probably still operating out of wherever they operate out of. Why do you ask?”

“They might have some information I don’t, but if you guys don’t have Hazel, I don’t know who I’d ask. It’s not like I have friends there. Unless…”

“Sorry. No. Them trying to jumpstart the apocalypse is the first I’d heard of them, and their dead operatives are the last.”

Five groaned. “Whatever. I don’t even know how I’d get there anyway. This briefcase is only wired to go to its Commission’s headquarters, not yours. I’d need one of this universe’s briefcases to manage it.”

Quentin grinned. “That, I can help you with.” He opened a cupboard behind him and took out a briefcase. “Klaus brought it back with him from Vietnam.”

“He didn’t destroy it?” Five asked absentmindedly, eyes gleaming as he looked at the new briefcase. 

“No? Why would he destroy it?”

“Mine did. Although, my Klaus also didn’t bring a boyfriend back with him.”

“He went to Vietnam, though?”

“Yes. At least, I assume. It’s not like he was particularly forthcoming with any answers when he came back. I know he time traveled, and I know he came back with new tattoos and dogtags, and now I know that your Klaus was in Vietnam, so I suppose they must have been in the same place. Or, if not the same, similar enough.”

Five stopped talking to focus all of his attention on the new briefcase in front of him. Surface level, they looked similar enough. Cut from the same cloth, so to speak. It was damaged, but still fully functional, as far as he could tell, and he deactivated it before opening it up and diving in. 

At first he thought everything looked the same on the inside too. A minute later, he found he was mistaken. There was wiring that lead to a circuit board that seemed to be programmed slightly differently than the one in his own briefcase. 

Pleased, he explained his findings to Quentin. 

“A multiversal location blueprint, maybe?” Quentin postulated. 

Five shrugged. “It makes sense. Otherwise, why is nothing else different?”

“Which means that if we can figure out the locational blueprint for your universe…”

“We came from our universe though. Just… the sixties in our universe.”

“Unless you also jumped universes when you went back to the sixties.”

“Yeah, but we just happened to jump to a universe with the same events leading up to us getting stuck? What are the odds?”

Quentin paused. “Do… Do you want the actual odds or…”

Five glared. “If you’re me, why are you also an idiot?”

“I didn’t get stuck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and actually developed some sort of sense of humor.”

“A sense of humor doesn’t make you stupid.”

“No, but not developing one makes you think other people are.” Quentin shook his head and leaned forward to poke at the circuit board Five was investigating. “If your blueprint is geared for your universe, how’d you end up in ours?”

“The blueprint only indicates which Commission Headquarters you end up in, I think. The rest of the timeline would have to be in a constant state of flux in order for them to be able to have any effect on it, so I think that there isn’t any timeline lock on any other location.”

“So then maybe there’s a way to jump timelines by messing with the wiring in the briefcase?”

“Either that, or we damage the briefcase and our only way home.”

“Then we better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, shouldn’t we?”

____________________________________________________________________________

Unpacking and explaining everything to Allison took less time than Vanya was expecting, and she left Allison on her own in favor of taking a walk around the house. She wanted nothing more than to find some random room and sequester herself away from prying eyes and well meaning siblings. She had almost double the amount she usually did, and it felt like everywhere she looked, there were people. She wanted some alone time. She was beyond ready for some alone time. 

She found herself instead. 

Vanya 2 was in the abandoned guest bedroom Vanya 1 had sought to find, and before she could turn around and try to find her own room, Vanya 2 was waving her in.

“How’d the conversation go with Allison?”

“Fine. There wasn’t much to talk about. ‘Versions of us from an alternate universe came to pay us a visit. Quentin and Five are working on trying to get them home. No, we’re not sure how it happened. This is everything I know about their universe. Tada!’ By the time Allison had finished unpacking, we were done, and she wanted to go find the other her. So I came for some alone time.”

“Oh! I can leave--”

“What? No. Don’t be silly. You were here first. Besides, technically, I am alone right now. The only other person in here is me.”

Vanya 2 grinned and patted the bed next to her. “Well, then, come have a seat. You should have seen the first bedroom I found. Glass everywhere.”

Vanya 1 winced. “Yeah, that was my fault. Conversation with Pogo did  _ not  _ end well.”

Vanya 2 nodded her understanding. “Yeah, neither did mine. Well, from what I can remember of it, at least.”

“You don’t remember it?”

“Not really. I was all glowy eyed and dangerous at the time though, so that makes sense.”

“Oh,” Vanya 1 furrowed her brow. “I thought… No, never mind.”

She supposed their conversations must have happened in very different circumstances. Hers was rather tame, if emotionally overwhelming. The other Vanya’s must have been all around more intense, if it had happened while she had gone White Violin. 

“No, what?”

“Nothing. I just… What did happen? During your conversation, I mean?”

“...It wasn’t much of a conversation. I asked him if he knew I had powers, he said he did, and things… well, they escalated. I killed him. Pogo. I killed Pogo. I didn’t have much control--”

“You don’t need to defend yourself. Not to me, of all people. I get it. I almost killed him too, and I wasn’t even being taken over by a murderous entity at the time.”

Vanya 2 smiled. “Thanks, but you don’t have to try and make me feel better. It was messed up, and it was my fault--”

“I’ve been there. I’ve been the White Violin before. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have much control. I know I didn’t.”

“Easy for you to say. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“I did. Adams, the conductor. If you ask the cops, it was Leonard. But it was me. And trust me, it feels shitty. It feels like my fault. But I barely remembered it. I had no control of my feelings, of my actions, and I wish I could say that as a bullshit way of trying to defend myself and make myself feel better, but I can’t. Nothing… It was all turned off. Everything. Every single human aspect of me was gone. All I wanted to do was play violin, and I was going to hurt almost anyone who got in my way. And that doesn’t make it okay. It doesn’t negate the harm I did, or mean that I never have to care about it or anything it just… I just mean, that you shouldn’t kill yourself over something you couldn’t consciously control. Instead, do your best to make sure you’re in a safer, healthier place, so you don’t lose control like that again.”

“... God, I wish it had been Adams that I killed. It would’ve been better than Pogo. Or, like, the entire planet.”

“You think that now. But trust me, it sucks. I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but at least Pogo was someone you had a legitimate grudge against. Not that murder was the appropriate response, but you did just find out that he enabled all of the neglect and abuse, so like, at least he deserved it, at least a little bit. Adams… All he did was try and run the orchestra to the best of his ability. He could’ve been nicer, sure. But missing rehearsal when my spot was already so unstable… He wasn’t wrong. I shouldn’t have been allowed to play. It’s not his fault I was having a personal crisis and depersonalizing. Is that what it’s called? Depersonalizing? Is that even a word?”

Vanya 2 shrugged helplessly, and Vanya 1 did too. “Alright then. Never mind. But, yeah. Point is, Adams was an asshole but an innocent one. In the end, is it really better?”

“... I guess not.” 

They were silent for a minute before Vanya 2 spoke again. “So, you told the cops it was Leonard?”

“No, Helen did. I didn’t remember enough about it to tell anyone anything at first. And then I remembered, and I tried to come clean, but Eudora refused to hear it. Helen’s story worked, and it stopped me from going to jail or a psychiatric facility for a crime I only technically committed. And Leonard was dead and an easy scapegoat…”

“Right. I get it. It’s… that was nice of Helen.”

“Nice is an understatement. She lied to the cops. If anyone knew… obstruction of justice charges at the very least. She could even be charged as an accomplice if the prosecutor knows what they’re doing. She really went out on a limb for me. But it’s kind of a hallmark of our friendship at this point, you know? It’s almost not a friendship so much as she’s sort of adopted me. Andrew, Angie, and David, we’re all friends, and my relationship with Toni is very different, but with Helen… I don’t know if she’s a mom friend or a surrogate mom sometimes. It’s great, but it’s… I don’t know. It’s weird.”

The other Vanya looked distinctly uncomfortable, and Vanya 1 felt bad. “Are you okay?”

She startled. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m… It’s weird, you know? To hear that… Your life, it was very different from mine. I kind of don’t… it doesn’t quite make sense to me.”

“You and Helen never…?”

“No. I tried, once, to be friends. To introduce myself, start up a conversation. It didn’t… it didn’t go anywhere. She was cold and standoffish and we’d been in the same orchestra for years already before I even tried, so it probably didn’t ingratiate myself to her in the first place. And it’s not like I’d had any friends before that. She probably thought I was this awkward loner who didn’t seem to really love being there, telling her all the same shit she’d heard thirty thousand times before and was not impressed. And that was only a couple of days before the whole apocalypse, so I never got the chance to try again. But you… you did well for yourself, didn’t you?”

“I have a few friends, if that’s what you mean. The book… writing it, dreaming it, destroying it, it was a wake up call. I had Quentin to rely on, also, and he pushed me to get the help I needed. I met Toni through Quentin, you know. They’d been dating, but then she realized she was gay and they broke up but stayed friends. He wanted to set us up on a date at first, but I was… well, that wasn’t a good idea. But he gave her my number anyway, and we became friends through that. Helen… I was only able to try to build any sort of relationship with her because I started going to therapy first. It took a couple of false starts, but she eventually started pitying me and then she started caring and… yeah. Angie, Andrew, and David were Helen’s friends first-- I made friends with them through her. And then there’s Zoe, but I only met her a week or so ago, and I wouldn’t really call her a ‘friend,’ you know? And there’s Gareth and Jack--”

“Coffee shop Gareth?”

“Yeah. And his boyfriend, Jack. They’re friends, sort of, I guess. I ran into them outside of the shop, so we were able to build a rapport. ANd I’m… I’m in a good place, you know? I got help, I had Quentin and Ben and even Klaus as support, and when things went the way they did, I was able to get closer with everyone else… I’m still traumatized, you know? I’m depressed and have anxiety issues and PTSD and… and it’s not really gonna go away anytime soon. But I’m in a good place.”

Vanya 2 smiled sadly. “That’s… good. That’s great.”

“I-- are you? I know you weren’t, back before the end of the world, but now? Things are better, right?”

“I guess. It was good, where I was. Losing my memory, meeting Sissy…” 

“You told me about her before, right? Harlan’s mom?”

“Mm… I wish… I wanted her to come with me, but she didn’t want to do something that might not be good for Harlan, and in the end it was her choice to make. But I still…”

“You must miss her.” 

“Like you wouldn’t believe. At this point though, I kind of just want to go home. I want… Seeing you, what you have, at first it kind of depressed me and it made me a little angry, even, but now… Now I think it just makes me want to build my own life. Find my own little group of friends. Spend some time with my family. Good, quality time, not whatever mess we were before. Go to therapy,” she broke off with a laugh, and Vanya 1 smiled.

“Good. That’s… You’ll rock it, Vanya. I know you will.”

There was a knock at the door, and Quentin walked in, looking sour. 

“Is this what you do now? Hide in random spare bedrooms and talk to yourself?”

“I still can’t tell if it counts as talking to myself if there’s two of me,” Vanya 1 muttered. “What’s going on, Q?”

“Five and I think we found a way for you guys to go home.”

____________________________________________________________________________

Fifteen minutes later, everyone was gathering a circle around the briefcase in the drawing room. Everyone except Mom and Claire, who were getting dinner ready in the kitchen, and Pogo, who had not even attempted to make contact with anyone in the family in days. 

“So, this is going to work?” Luther 2 looked at the briefcase speculatively.

“It’s impossible to say for sure,” Quentin said. “Between the two of us, we think we’ve found a way to send you to your proper timeline, but there’s no way for us to be at all certain that it’ll work.”

“Is there any way to test it?” Vanya 2 wondered. 

“Only in practice. And I’m hesitant to send one person without anyone else-- if there’s only enough juice for one trip, they’re stranded wherever they land, the rest of you are stranded here, and there’s no way of knowing where they are or if they’re safe.”

“So, we’re flying into the unknown with no way of knowing if we’ll be able to come out on the other side?” Klaus 2 clarified. At Five’s nod, he shrugged. “Well, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve done that. I’m in. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Diego 2 said. “I don’t think I’m happy with this plan.”

“Do you have a better one?” Five demanded. Diego was suspiciously silent. “Well then shut up.”

“Boys…” Eudora warned. “Behave.”

Diego started arguing, but Eudora gave him a stern look, and he stopped. 

“Diego might be right,” Luther 2 admitted. “Is it really the best idea to hurl ourselves between dimensions without knowing where we’re going to end up.”

“We don’t have any other option,” Five told them. “It’s a miracle nothing bad has happened so far, but having more than one of the same person in the same timeline can’t be good for it. Something’s going to go wrong sometime soon, and we don’t want to find out what it’s going to be.”

“I guess it’s just harder to jump into the unknown when you don’t have imminent doom breathing down your neck,” Allison 2 surmised. “You really think it’ll work?”

“I’m as confident as I can be,” Five told her. “So are we doing this, or what?”

Everyone exchanged looks, and then Klaus 2 threw his arms around Klaus 1 and Ben. “I’m gonna miss you guys!”

“Seriously,” Vanya 2 smiled at Vanya 1. “Thank you for all of your help.”

“We didn’t do much,” Diego 1 insisted. “Besides, we were basically just helping ourselves.”

“Are you guys going to be okay?” Ben asked. “Assuming you make it home, I mean.”

“We’ll be good,” Vanya 2 insisted. 

“Not magically healed,” Allison 2 continued, “but good. This was good for us, I think.”

There were nods from everyone, and then awkward silence for a moment, before Five rolled his eyes.

“Are we ready to go?”

Everyone who was leaving linked hands in a circle, except for Five, whose shoulders were being gripped by Vanya and Diego. There was a crackle of electricity, and then they were gone.

The remaining people exchanged looks. 

“Do you think they made it?” Eudora asked, filling the sudden silence.

“I hope so,” Allison responded. 

“I just don’t want to think about where else they might end up,” Vanya worried. 

“They’ll be okay,” Quentin tried to reassure her. “I’m a smart guy, and Five’s been working with this tech for a while. We’re not positive it’ll work, but the odds are good. 

Vanya frowned. “If you say so.”

They were silent for a moment before Allison spoke again. “Well, this was a worthwhile trip.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I come back to this story, I regret setting up the 1-2 system for establishing characters. Maybe it's jsut that I wrote too many scenes with both of the same character? IDK. That Vanya scene... I love it but it was hell to write. But yeah anyway.
> 
> *Shakily holds out hands in supplication* please... please... comments... sustenance... allow me to flourish, I beg of you.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Huh, I wonder why this is taking so long for me to write?  
> Me: ...HOW MANY WORDS IS THIS THING
> 
> This is truly a behemoth of an epilogue. I really hope y'all enjoy.

Vanya kept her eyes tightly closed, even though she felt solid land beneath her feet. “Are we alive? Did we make it?”

“Open your eyes, Vanya,” Luther said.

She did, and she found herself looking at the rubble of the academy. The air was cool and breezy, and Vanya shivered. 

“Are we too early?” Allison said. “Or too late?”

“Well, either the world is about to erupt into a fiery ball of death or we have enough time to get down to the theater and stop it,” Klaus said. 

“How?” Luther insisted. “It’s not like it went so well last time we tried.”

“Well, how’d you stop it at the CIA headquarters?” Five asked.

“That was Ben,” Klaus told him. “And he died doing it.”

Vanya frowned, but Klaus put a comforting hand on her shoulder before she could start feeling too bad. 

“Here’s an idea,” Allison said. “We could listen to me and wait for her to finish her solo this time, instead of attacking her.”

Vanya nodded. “I don’t remember much from then, but I know that if there’s no threat, there’s no reason for me to lash out and try to defend myself.”

“... We’ll have to find ourselves and stop them first,” Diego said. 

“That’s going to be difficult,” Five informed them. “Meeting yourself in the past does NOT go well.”

Luther grimaced, making an aborted movement to cover his groin. 

“So we don’t meet ourselves. We’ll send Vanya in to talk to them.” Diego suggested. “Hopefully, she’ll be far enough away that the problems won’t kick in.”

“Will they even listen to me?”

“I would,” Allison insisted. “And hopefully, seeing two of you will make everyone else see reason.”

“In reality,” Luther admitted, “I think it’s only me you have to worry about convincing. I don’t think anyone else was super on board with the ‘attack Vanya’ plan. If they have confirmation…”

“Okay!” Vanya said finally. “Okay. Fine. I’ll do it. Let’s hope for the best, I guess.”

______________________________________________________________________

Vanya approached the past versions of her siblings with a fair amount of trepidation. The lobby of the theater was empty except for them, and faint orchestral music floated out to the lobby from the performance space. 

“She’s beyond reasoning!” Luther was saying, and that was when she cut in.

“How would you know, unless you tried?”

They all turned to look at her. 

“Vanya! Klaus exclaimed happily. “Are you less murder-y right now?” 

She grimaced. “I’m not your Vanya. Or... well, I am, but from the future.”

“So we do have a future?” Diego confirmed. 

“You will. If you fix this. Attacking won’t do any good, Luther. You know that.”

Luther frowned. “What other choice do we have?”

“Just wait. Give me some time. The future I’m from… you guys attacked me and it didn’t go well. The version of me that’s in there,  _ your  _ me, she’s pure instinct and emotion right now. No higher logic, nothing but feelings. If you attack, I’m going to feel threatened and attack back. If you don’t… the music, it’s therapeutic almost. Give me a chance to calm down, show me you’re here to support me-- just sit down and watch. It’ll work.”

“I really don’t think--” Luther started, but Vanya groaned impatiently. 

“Do you want to know the reason the world ended last time? Because I was scared and alone and had just killed the first person to make me feel actually wanted in almost twenty years because he’d been manipulating me to get revenge on you. I went from being on drugs that made me an emotionless robot to experiencing feelings for the first time since I was four, and everything I’d ever been sure of in my entire life had just been turned on its head. I thought I was responsible for killing the only one of you who had even tried to give a damn in the last few years, and I needed help, and you decided to lock me in the basement instead. You decided that the best thing to do to a traumatized girl with no control over her feelings or powers was lock her in the nightmare basement that had traumatized her in the first place. ANd then, when you had a chance to redeem yourself, you decided to try and kill her. I’m  _ from the future, _ Luther. And do you know what happens in your future? Guilt. A whole lot of guilt. The first thing you said to me when we saw each other again was an apology. Because attacking isn’t the right thing to do, Luther, and I think that beyond your whole ‘avenge Allison’ mentality, you know that.”

“... So, what?” Diego asked. “We just let you play?”

“Yes. The power that’s escaping now, it isn’t destructive, and it won’t be so long as I don’t feel threatened. Just… just don’t attack. Okay?”

Klaus nodded, and Allison looked relieved. Even Diego seemed to accept it. Luther, however, didn’t look too happy.

“I-- Vanya, you killed Pogo.” 

“I know. And I’m going to have to live with that. I’m not going to try and defend it-- it was terrible, no matter how I felt. But tell me you wouldn’t have done the same. Tell me you didn’t want to kill Pogo, at least a little bit, when you found out that he  _ knew _ Dad wasn’t reading your letters. That he knew your mission to the moon was for nothing. He  _ knew _ , Luther. He knew the whole time that I had powers, that there was no reason to be isolating and neglecting me, that Dad was  _ drugging _ me into submission. He  _ knew. _ And he stood there the whole time and he let it happen. He offered platitudes, and ‘I wish I could help’s, and all along, he knew, and he did  _ nothing. _ No, I shouldn’t have killed him. But if you were in my shoes… If you were feeling things for the first time in twenty-five years… what would you have done? Am I evil? Or am I a person who made a mistake? Am I your sister? Or am I a villain to be killed?”

“Vanya…”

“Well? Am I your sister?”

Luther was silent, but finally nodded. 

“Okay.”

They were just about to head inside when Five showed up. 

“Are you my Five or past Five?” Vanya asked, and Five scowled. 

“What do you mean ‘past Five?”

“Okay, so you’re past Five.”

“This Vanya is from the future,” Diego explained. 

Five’s eyes lit up. “The future? So we succeed?”

“...Now you will. But that’s the thing… You need to do something.”

Vanya explained what her Five had explained to her, that they still had to try and go to the past.

“Once you leave, you’ll become us, supposedly. According to my version of you, at least. And then you won’t have any issues about two versions of us running around. Five is convinced that a similar timeline should occur for you, so you’ll eventually be us, and find your way to this moment the same way we did.”

He nodded, and the others looked like they wanted to ask questions but Five shook his head. “Don’t tell us anything else about our futures. If we know… It won’t end well. We might try to change things or fix things and then we won’t end up here. When Vanya’s done, we’ll go.”

Vanya nodded and turned to leave. 

“Wait!” Klaus exclaimed. “Cell phones! You’re going to need them. We won’t.”

Only Allison and Diego had any cell phone to give, but Allison promised to retrieve Vanya’s from her and leave it backstage. Phones in tow, Vanya turned once again to leave, and was met with no resistance except her own. 

She looked back one more time. “Klaus? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Moi? Why, certainly.” They went over to the other side of the lobby, away from their siblings.

“Is Ben here?” she asked, and Klaus looked stunned. “I know. That he’s been with you, that he’s been around… is he here now?”

“I-- yes. He’s here.” He gestured at the empty air next to him, and Vanya turned to address it. 

“This won’t make sense right now, but I wanted to say I’m sorry. I also wanted to say thank you. I love you. And I promise, I’ll tell him. When it’s time, I’ll tell him.”

Klaus was hopelessly confused, but that didn’t stop him from speaking. “Ben says he loves you too. And you’re welcome? He thinks?”

“He’ll understand when the time is right. For now…” She surged forward and wrapped her arms around Klaus. “That’s for him,” she said when she drew back, and then she leaned in and hugged him once more. “That one’s for you.” 

FInally, finally, she hurried out the door. 

____________________________________________________________________________

_ Two Weeks Later _

**Luther**

“Mr. Hargreeves, I cannot tell you how pleased the students are that you’ve decided to come and see them.”

Luther smiled at the school principal, Mrs. Kane. “I’m excited to be doing this. Thank you for having me.”

“Trust me, the pleasure is all ours.”

They walked up the hall to the first classroom, a third grade one, packed full of students. The teacher was a rather pretty woman with tan skin and curly black hair, in a dress patterned with stars. 

“Mr. Hargreeves, this is Ms. Rosario.” Mrs. Kane introduced them.

They shook hands. Luther’s skin tingled where it touched hers. He smiled shyly, and she beamed back.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kane addressed the students. 

“Class, this is Luther Hargreeves. He’s come to talk to you today about his time on the moon.”

He smiled big and wide and the group of kids, trying hard not to feel awkward and scared. They were a bunch of eight year olds. He’d been security for one of the most notorious mobsters in history. He could face them.

“Uh... hi. I’m Luther. I lived on the moon for four years. Before we start, does anyone have any particular questions about the way life on the moon was?”

A couple of kids raised their hands, clutching index cards to their chests as they waved their arms in the air.

Ms. Rosario called on a small girl sitting in the front corner. 

“Was it cold on the moon?” she asked.

“Well, I wore a spacesuit when I wasn’t inside, and that keeps you real warm. And my house was fully sealed off and it was pretty warm.”

“Oh,” she seemed slightly disappointed, and Luther wondered about that until Ms. Rosario called on the next kid. 

“Did you meet any aliens up there?” asked a little boy in the back. 

“I-- no? There aren’t any aliens on the moon.”

“Uh huh! My brother told me!” 

“...There might be aliens on other planets, really really far away, but not on the moon.”

“Yeah? Well, how would  _ you  _ know?”

“...I lived there?”

The other questions weren’t any more sophisticated. How did he use the bathroom? What did he eat? What did he do on the moon? Did he have a TV? 

Luther had been wondering if this was really a good idea when a girl who had been otherwise silent for the duration of his presentation raised her hand. 

“Mr. Luther? Could I live on the moon?”

He smiled. “Do you really want to?”

The girl shrugged. “Would it be quiet there?”

“It’s very quiet. All the time. There isn’t any sound in space, and there was no one for me to talk to. I didn’t like it.”

“But I would. I like it quiet.”

He thought about it for a minute, before he nodded. “That makes sense. But even if the quiet didn’t bother you, the loneliness might. You don’t realize how much you love other people until you don’t have the option of having them around anymore. I’m not trying to tell you not to be an astronaut, or ever go to space. If that’s what you want to do, then definitely, do it! If it’s just quiet you want though, there are safer ways to get it.”

“Did you always want to be an astronaut, Mr. Luther?”

“No. I thought I’d be a superhero. Forever.”

“What happened?”

He stopped. Too much happened. More than he could say. But the truth of the matter was, after everything he and his family had done…

“Who said I’m not?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luther was about to answer a call from the contractor who was fixing the house when he heard footsteps rushing after him as he left the school. He turned around and saw Ms. Rosario following him. 

“I just wanted to say thank you for talking to the kids. That little girl at the end, Rachel, she never talks in class. You really made an impact on her.”

Luther grinned. Her class had only been the first of a long day of talks he’d given, but he’d been remembering Rachel the whole time. 

“It was my pleasure. I’m glad my time on the moon came of some good to someone.”

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear nervously. “I… uh… I enjoyed it a lot too.”

He felt his cheeks grow warm. “Oh… Well, thank you, Ms. Rosario--”

“Nina. You can call me Nina.” 

“Nina. Thank you, Nina. That… that means a lot.”

“Here,” she thrust a piece of paper into his hands and turned around to run back inside the school. “Bye.”

He looked at the slip as she disappeared.

_ Nina Rosario _ _   
_ _ (646) 867-5309 _ _   
_ _ Call me sometime? :) _

Luther smiled. It might not be the best idea-- he knew nothing about her yet, and she certainly only knew about him what he’d told her class, but he was hopeful. It would be nice, at least, to connect with someone outside of his family. 

Maybe he’d give her a call later. 

________________________________________________________________________

**Diego**

The solid impact of his fists hitting the punching bag made decent headway at easing the tense knot in his chest, and it grounded him. 

He thought he might be the only person in the family who was doing much the same thing as he’d been doing before their father died. He was at the rubble of the house every other day, helping Luther deal with the contractors and insurance investigators doing work on the house, and he spent some time with Five, assisting him in repairing Mom (AKA passing him tools while Five grumbled), and he was seeing the rest of his family too, but otherwise, he was still mopping floors in the gym and fighting crime by moonlight. 

He wasn’t even unhappy with that situation to be honest, but he was a little confused. He just felt like he should be doing  _ more _ . Something else should be happening, right? He should be, you know, moving on. Meeting new people. Shouldn’t he? Everyone else was changing, so why did he feel like he didn’t have to? 

...The truth was, he thought he just missed Lila. The woman was nuts, but he thought maybe, in the end, she was just damaged. He thought he’d see her again, but after it had been so long, he was giving up hope of ever really seeing her again. 

He hit the bag at a bad angle, and a bolt of pain shot through his wrist. He tried to ignore it and push through the pain, but the next time his fist slammed into the bag, he felt something crack, and he groaned. He pulled the wrap off of his hand and examined his wrist. It was already starting to turn black and blue, and it was swelling at an alarming rate. This would mean a trip to the hospital for sure, with Mom out of commission for the time being, and not only that, but it would mean getting a ride.

“I need a favor,” he told Vanya once she picked up the phone. 

“...Hello to you too?”

“I’m sorry, hi, can you take me to the hospital please?”

He could hear the worry in her voice. “What the fuck, Diego?”

“I think I broke my wrist, and I can’t drive myself if I can’t operate the gear shift.”

“I-- Yeah. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He thanked her and hung up, and hurried to retrieve an ice pack from the freezer to keep around his wrist until they got to the hospital, cursing himself all the while. He should have been paying more attention to his workout. He could feel his mind slipping off topic, and he’d known it wasn’t a good idea to be throwing punches without focusing on it, and he  _ definitely _ should not have tried to push through the pain, and now he was paying the price.

Diego didn’t know what kind of traffic laws she’d broken to get there as fast as she did, but she’d arrived only five minutes after he’d hung up, and he went outside to meet her at the car.

“So what happened?” she asked him as he got into the passenger seat. Klaus was lounging in the backseat, a carefully crafted look of disinterest frozen on his face, but Diego could see the intrigue lingering in his eyes. 

Diego carefully unwrapped the ice pack from around his wrist and showed it to her. She winced in sympathy. “Hit the damn punching bag the wrong way. I felt something crack.”

“That looks painful,” Klaus mused, and Diego grunted. 

“It ain’t no walk in the park.”

“Well, put the ice back on it,” Vanya advised. “If there was a crack, it’s probably a fracture, and the ice’ll help the swelling somewhat.”

“Wow, Vanya. Really? Thanks…”

“Oh stop. I’m the one doing you a favor, Diego.”

“That doesn’t make the useless information I already know necessary.”

The bickering didn’t stop for the rest of the ride, but it was good natured and teasing, not really malicious, which Diego figured was progress. 

Check-in at the hospital went quickly, helped along by the emptiness of the waiting room, and before he knew it, Diego was being guided through an x-ray by a tall man in green scrubs that looked vaguely familiar. 

“So, you’re Diego right?” asked the x-ray tech as he fiddled with the machine.

“I-- yeah? Do I know you?”

“I’m Alec. We’ve met once or twice but not really. I train at your gym.”

“You box?” Diego turned an assessing gaze on Alec. It explained why he looked familiar, but he couldn’t say he really remembered meeting him. 

“It’s a hobby,” Alec shrugged. “I watched your last match though. You’re really good.”

“Thanks.” He’d better be, he thought. He’d been training for years. 

“How’d this happen then?” he gestured at the wrist.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Alec paused, taken aback. “I-- listen, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to but usually when we hear responses like that, it’s either super embarrassing or an abuse situation, and if I suspect it’s the latter, I have to report it.”

“I-- Dude, really? You think--”

“Man, I don’t know what to think. I’m just trying to make sure--”

“No! No. It’s… I just aimed a punch wrong. Hit the punching bag at the wrong angle. It’s embarrassing, you know?”

“No. I mean I get it, but it shouldn’t be embarrassing. It happens, man.”

The conversation shifted after that, to discussion of the pay-per-view match that had been on the previous night. Alec was cool, Diego noted, chill, and he had an easy grace that made him seem laid-back, even when he stared ranting about how one of the fighter’s forms had been way off. 

When Diego got brought back down to an exam room, he was almost sorry to end the conversation. 

It was another hour before they confirmed the wrist was fractured and he got the cast put on. They handed him a prescription for pain medication he probably wasn’t going to take and he left with Vanya and Klaus, making sure to keep the scrip held tightly in his fist, away from his brother. 

In the car, Klaus produced a sharpie, seemingly from midair, and made grabby hands at Diego’s wrist. 

“Come on, Diego,” he begged. “I need payback for that time you drew a dick on my cast when I broke my arm.”

“We were fourteen, then. Thirty year olds don’t walk around with signatures on their cast.”

“You do now!” Klaus exclaimed, and begrudgingly, Diego held out his arm, hoping to get him to shut up.

As nervous as Diego had been, the only thing Klaus did was write his name in a shaky handwriting with flourishes by the ‘K’ and the ‘S.’ Diego thought that would be the end of it, but then they stopped at a red light, and Klaus handed the pen over to Vanya, who drew a music note and then a little ‘V’ next to it. 

Vanya dropped him off back at the gym, and he was faintly disappointed to leave the car and go back home, alone. 

Maybe it was time to consider moving on?

There was a knock at his door, and it was second nature to grip a knife in his hand tightly and hide it behind his arm as he opened the door. 

It was Alec, and the man grinned. 

“Hey,” he greeted. “Al sent me back here when I asked after you. How’s the hand?”

“Been better.” Diego sheathed the knife in his pocket in as imperceptible a move as he could manage. 

“I see you’ve already got a couple of signatures on that cast,” Alec noted. “I was kind of hoping to be the first.”

Diego raised an eyebrow. “You want to sign my cast?”

“Hell yeah! Isn’t that half the fun of having a cast? Getting to show off all the people who wanted to sign it?”

“I… What?” 

“... You live a sad existence. Come on! I brought my own sharpie and everything!”

Diego reluctantly held out his wrist to the other man, and Alec beamed, pulling a dark green sharpie from his pocket and writing his name in block letters across the inside of his arm. 

“Is this why you came?” Diego asked, inspecting the signature. “To sign your name across my cast?”

“Partially. I also thought that maybe after you healed up… I don’t know, maybe we could be sparring buddies?”

Diego paused. It seemed shockingly like Alec wanted to be  _ friends _ with him, and well, why wouldn’t he, Diego was great and friendly and people  _ loved  _ him, but still, it confused him somewhat. Maybe because he’d never really met Alec before that day. Maybe because he’d only actually ever talked to him in a professional capacity. 

Truth was, he couldn’t say he was actually opposed to it. 

“Yeah, sure. Why not.”

Hm. Maybe he was making some progress after all.

_________________________________________________________________________

**Allison**

Claire launched herself at her mother the minute she walked into the room. 

“Mommy! You’re back!”

Allison felt like crying, but she did that almost the entire plane ride to California, and she had no more tears left to shed. Or she hoped so, at least. Crying was exhausting. 

“Hi, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I was gone for so long.” She held her daughter tightly to her chest. She felt like her heart might burst.

Patrick looked cooly at her from his position standing guard over the interaction. 

“Allison.”

“Hi, Patrick. I--”

“Not now. Please, not now.”

She nodded and pressed her face into Claire’s curls. It felt better than anything else she’d ever experienced to hold her daughter again. And it wasn’t perfect. She didn’t know if it ever really would be. But it was a whole lot better than it had ever been before. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, yeah. I talked it over with Patrick. He said it’d be okay if you all stayed here. I think it’d be really great for Claire to meet you guys.”

Luther hummed on the other end of the line. “Is next week okay? I think Vanya said they had a break from rehearsal.”

“Yeah. That’ll be great. I’ll see you guys then. I’ll book the tickets for you tonight.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Luther told her. “I’ve got it. See you next week.”

Allison hung up and hung her head over the toilet bowl, thanking her lucky stars that she’d stopped vomiting long enough to carry on a normal conversation with Luther. The boxed pregnancy tests taunted her from the brown paper pharmacy bag they were hiding in, and she sighed heavily, gathering all of her strength and preparing herself to stand.

Twenty minutes later, she found herself looking down at the positive tests, unsure of how to feel. There was a bit of reassurance, knowing that even though she’d left Ray behind, she’d have a piece of him with her. But if it had hurt her knowing that he’d never meet Claire, it hurt even worse to know that he’d never meet his own child. 

Frustrated and exhausted, she threw the tests into the garbage and wondered how she was going to present another pregnancy to the world. The idea of it being presented as the product of a one night stand was unappealing. It felt like reducing Ray to nothing more than a fling, and he’d been so much more than that. But it wasn’t Patrick’s baby, and she didn’t know if he’d go for lying to the public about it. She’d been able to talk to him since she’d arrived, and they were on better terms now, but there’s friendly for the sake of your daughter and then there’s friends, and she didn’t know if they were even close to being on good enough terms to ask him to lie for her. 

There was a knock at the door.

“Allison?” Patrick called. “How are you feeling?”

She sighed and stood to open the door. “I’ve been better.”

“Last time I saw you this sick, you were pregnant with Claire.” He was looking shrewdly at her, and he gestured towards the tests sitting on top of the waste basket. “Am I expecting another child?”

Allison bit her lip and collapsed back against the bathroom wall, sliding down until she was sitting back on the floor. He sat down next to her and waited. 

She’d been hoping to avoid telling him about the trip to the sixties. He knew about her family, about her powers- he had to, after everything that happened with Claire, but she wasn’t sure how he’d take all the time travel. But it seemed at this point, she had no other choice. 

“It’s… Patrick, I have to tell you something. And it’s gonna seem really weird, but I need you to wait until I’m done to ask questions, okay?”

“I-- okay?”

She took a deep breath. “It’s been a really really long time since I’ve been here. After my Dad died and I went back home… Patrick, Five showed up. My brother, he came back and he was talking about the apocalypse, and Vanya got this boyfriend who-- whatever. That’s not the important part. The point is, the apocalypse that Five was talking about, it happened. Sort of. Five, he took us back in time to try and avoid it. I know that seems really weird, the time travel and everything, but I promise, I am not making this up. We… all of us, we ended up scattered through Dallas in the 60’s, at different times. I landed in 1961. I met a man there, a man named Raymond Chestnut. And he… I was scared and alone and I couldn’t speak and I fell in love with him. We got married. I found my family two years later, and we came home, but I had to leave Ray behind. He thought he could do more good where he was.”

Her cheeks were wet and cold, and she swiped the tears away from under her eyes and tried to regulate her breathing. 

“So this kid… it’s that guy Ray’s?” Patrick said hesitantly.

Allison nodded. “There isn’t really another option.”

Patrick blew out a heavy breath. “That’s… wow. I don’t… I feel like I shouldn’t believe you?”

“I-- Patrick I’m not lying--”

“I mean, c’mon Allison. You can’t tell me that’s not an insane story. I mean, time travel? The apocalypse? I mean, what are you going to tell me next, that Diego started a cult and Luther became a nanny?”

“... Actually, that was Klaus and Vanya…”

“Okay seriously?”

“I know. I know it all sounds weird. And I’m sorry, Patrick. I wish I could… I wish, I really really wish I could tell you this was all some joke and the baby is yours and-- I can’t. The baby is the child of a man I fell in love with and left behind in 1963. And there are a lot of things I’m nervous about. I’m nervous about what the media is going to say once they find out, and I’m nervous that you still don’t believe me, and I’m nervous that I’m going to have to raise this kid without their father and-- most of all, I think I’m just nervous that I’m going to fuck up the same way I did with Claire.”

“Woah-- woah, hey. You-- I mean, you fucked up, yeah, but why do you think it’s gonna happen again?”

“I don’t. I’m just scared. Even if I don’t… there are so many things that could go wrong and it’s not like I had a good role model for how to be a parent.”

“Allison-- listen, okay? I don’t care if that kid isn’t mine, or if we’re not together anymore, or anything. I don’t care. As long as I am still Claire’s father and you are still Claire’s mother, I will be there to help you, okay?”

She nodded. “I just… You know you don’t have to, right? I know I really… I didn’t just fuck things up with Claire: I fucked things up with you too, and I can’t… Patrick, I can’t tell you how much I regret that.”

“The good thing is, you don’t have to. I already know. And you’re-- I mean you’re going to therapy, things are going to get better. And it’s-- I know I said a lot of shit when this all first went down, things I shouldn’t have said, but it’s good for Claire to have her mother in her life.”

Allison smiled. “Thanks, Patrick.”

As if summoned by her name, Claire appeared in the still open doorway.

“Why are you sitting on the floor of the bathroom? Are you having a party?”

Allison and Patrick exchanged a grin. 

“How could we have a party without you, Claire-Bear?”

The girl grinned and dove into her father’s lap. “Party in the bathroom! Can we play hide and seek?”

Allison’s gaze wandered over to the garbage can. She placed a hand over her abdomen and imagined she could feel the baby’s heartbeat.

__________________________________________________________________________ 

**Klaus**

“Here,” Vanya put a folder down on the coffee table in front of Klaus. 

He picked it up and opened it. “That’s… a  _ lot _ of words.”

“It’s a contract, dumbass.” She put her violin down next to the sofa and hung her coat next to the door.

“Ouch, Vanny! Words hurt!”

“They also got you the job at the theater, so I think the next thing you say should be a ‘thank you.’”

“Wait, really?” He looked back down at the papers in his hands. Now that he was looking, he saw the theater’s logo, and the words “Contract for Employment” in bold at the top of the page. “They gave me the job?”

“They will, once you sign the contract. I’d send a copy of it over to Allison though, before you sign it. She’s pretty good at catching tricky language that might ruin things for you later.”

“Yeah, it must be all those law books Dad made her read as a kid.”

“It’s exactly those law books. Take a picture and send it to her. If you have it signed by the time I leave for the orchestra tomorrow, I can bring it with me and you’ll probably be able to start when we get back from break in a couple of weeks.”

“Okay, okay.” He took Vanya’s phone from her to start taking pictures. He paused, a sour thought nagging at him. 

“Hey-- they didn’t give me this job because of you, right?”

Vanya gave him a look as she sat next to him on the couch. “It’s not like they were looking to hire anyone before I asked, Klaus.”

“I-- No, I know that, but like… if they didn’t like me, they wouldn’t have gone through with hiring me, right?”

“Klaus, I’m sure they loved you. And I’m sure if you don’t do a good job, they’re not gonna keep you around because of me, so you still have to  _ do  _ a good job--”

“I just wanted to make sure that this wasn’t… I want to earn it, you know?”

Klaus hated being honest, but living with Vanya these last couple of weeks had loosened his tongue some. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, he reasoned. 

Vanya put a hand on his shoulder. “You will. It’s not a bad thing to need a hand getting a foot in the door. As long as you try your best, you’ll do great.” She smiled and reached for the remote from the coffee table. “So, are we watching the Magicians?”

Klaus smirked. “We do have to feed your Jade Tailor addiction, don’t we?” 

“I was thinking more about your mooneyes for Hale Appleman, but sure, we can go with that.”

“He’s hot, Vanya. You can admit that much--”

“They’re all hot, Klaus--”

“Now that, we can agree on.”

Vanya grinned and turned on Netflix. 

As she searched for the show, Klaus leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“What was that for?” Vanya asked. 

“Believing in me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Allison replied to the text by the morning, telling Klaus that there wasn’t anything problematic in there that she could find, and that she was glad he was getting a job. He had to admit, it was something of a relief to sign the contract and present it to Vanya. Maybe he’d finally get something right for once.

“I got a call from the theater manager,” Vanya told him when he gave her the folder. “He said you should come with me to rehearsal today if you were free, so he could help you get the lay of the land before everything started.”

“Yeah, alright.” He poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat next to Vanya at the table. “Anything else on the agenda today?”

“I’ve got a couple of lessons this morning, but other than that and rehearsal, no. Luther texted last night right before I went to sleep though; Allison told him she wants us all over and he’s planning the trip for next week if we’re free.”

“So we get to meet our Claire instead of Bizzaro-Claire?”

Vanya grimaced. “No, we get to meet our Claire instead of the other universe’s Claire.”

“That’s what I said!”

“I feel like calling them ‘Bizzaro’ is really rude.”

“The other you had a problem with it too,” Klaus mused. 

“And you kept doing it?”

Klaus cocked his head and grinned, shoveling a spoonful of Cheerios into his mouth.

Vanya’s first student arrived after breakfast, and Klaus retreated into her bedroom to hide while she taught. He stayed there for a few hours, reemerging at lunch time, when she’d finished with her classes. They ate a quick lunch, and then headed out for the theater. 

“Hey, Vanya,” The theater manager greeted them when they got to the stage door. “You’d better hurry. I think they’re planning on starting in a minute. You must be Klaus.” He reached a hand out to shake Klaus’s. 

“C’est moi,” Klaus replied. He returned the handshake and then passed over his signed contract. “You’ll probably need that, huh?”

“I do. I’m Rhys. If you follow me, I’ll show you around the building.”

They bid goodbye to Vanya, who headed for the stage, and Rhys took him through to the main office. 

“You’ll spend most of your time in here,” Rhys told him. “You’ll sit here, answer phones and record cancellations, that sort of thing. Any purchases are made through the box office, so if people call about that, you’ll reroute them. In addition, you’ll probably also be running errands, taking things around the building as needed. You’ll be mostly shadowing me for your first couple of weeks, doing things on an as needed basis, and I’ll delegate stuff to you.”

They continued their way through the building, Rhys showing Klaus the places he’d need to know. They did a brief tour of backstage, found the security hub, and Rhys showed him the hallway with the private offices of the higher ups and the conference rooms.

“PR is through there,” Rhys pointed out, “and HR is through there.” He pointed to a closed door that said “Human Resources” on it. “Hopefully, you’ll never need to go to either place. PR is full of ego and HR is only for filing complaints or getting written up because of complaints filed against you. Or if you get fired. Otherwise, you’ll only be communicating with them over email. And now, for the last part of our tour…”

They headed to the lobby, and Rhys took him through a door labelled “Employees Only.” 

“Show nights, you’ll be in here. This is Will Call. Any tickets reserved for pickup will be picked up here. Purchases and refunds are handled, again, by the box office, the next window over. Odds are, you’ll get a few people in line wanting to buy last minute tickets. Send them over there. A bunch of them are rich, entitled assholes. If they give you a hard time, tell them you’re going to call security if they don’t comply. Usually, that’ll get them off your back without you actually needing to call. If it doesn’t, don’t hesitate to call them. No one will blame you, even if they don’t turn out to be much of a problem. But usually they’ll just come pick up their tickets and leave. You’ll get a fuller rundown of everything Will Call handles the next time there’s a show. Until then…”

“Oh, are we done?” Klaus asked. 

“We’re done,” Rhys told him. “This is your copy of your contract,” he passed him a folder from the back of his clipboard. “You’ll need to hold on to this in a safe place. Oh, and if you give me your phone, I’ll put my number in. So we can be in contact.” The man had been professional and competent before, but not unfriendly. Now he was looking a bit flustered, and Klaus smirked slowly and easily.

“No phone. I’ve been sharing with Vanya. I planned to use my first paycheck to get one.”

“Ah. Well then…” He pulled out a pen from the top of the clipboard and scribbled something on the bottom of a piece of paper. He ripped it off and passed it over. “Hold on to this. And if you have any questions between now and when we come back after break, don’t hesitate to call.”

Klaus folded the phone number and slipped it into his pocket. “I will. Thanks for showing me around Rhys.”

“No problem.”

Rhys walked quickly away, a flush spreading over his cheeks, and Klaus grinned as he headed back towards the main theater to wait for Vanya in the stands. 

Rhys was cute, and obviously harboring a crush, which did not surprise Klaus in the least. He didn’t know if dating his supervisor was a good idea, but one could dream. 

What  _ also  _ did not surprise him was that they had been very careful not to give him any responsibilities that included handling money. He knew that they knew his background, and even if he was mildly disappointed at the lack of trust, he couldn’t say he blamed them. He’d have to prove himself a lot more trustworthy before they gave him those kinds of responsibilities. 

Hell, he was surprised Vanya had taken the chance on him. He hadn’t had a plan for what to do when they got back to their timeline, especially once he’d realized that the house had still been destroyed, beyond “get some sleep and get sober.” Vanya offering up her couch was a relief, and he took her up on it, despite the instincts yelling at him to turn her down and figure something else out. He didn’t understand how she trusted him, even after everything they’d been through, and he understood even less why she’d gone out on a limb for him and asked about getting him the job at the theater. 

He’d tried to express that to her one night, when they’d been up late watching  _ The Last Five Years _ and aiming expletives at the TV. She’d just gripped his hand tightly. 

“How can I help you if I’m not willing to trust you?” She asked him. “How can you help yourself if no one takes the chance?”

They were quiet a few moments, before Vanya laughed. “Besides,” she continued, “if you don’t think this is as much for me as it was for you, you’ve not been paying enough attention. I could use the company.”

And the truth was, she said that, and it sounded like it made sense, but he couldn’t help the suspicion that it was all just for him, and he was determined to earn the trust she’d placed in him.

They left the theater together, and they stopped at a Chinese take out place to pick up dinner. They took a break from the Magicians that night, choosing instead to watch shitty romcoms and make fun of them as they carb loaded on lo mein and fried rice. 

Klaus opened up his fortune cookie while Vanya complained about the heroine’s violin playing, laughing outwardly, even as he focused his attention on the slip of paper inside. 

_ Happiness will find you if you are patient enough to let it. _

And with a belly full of good food and a heart full of laughter, Klaus allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, it had. 

____________________________________________________________________________

**Five**

The library was quiet as ever, but that made sense for one in the afternoon on a Wednesday in a  _ library. _ Five appreciated it. After so long on his own, too much noise set him off a bit, grating on his sensitive ears, but absolute silence reminded him too much  _ of _ the time spent on his own, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d fall into the flashbacks and nightmares that still plagued him. The library was quiet enough not to grate on him or break his concentration, but had enough movement and reminders of human presence that he never felt too alone. 

There was one new email in the account he’d set up a week ago when he’d started this venture, and he clicked on it with what he would never admit was some trepidation. 

_ Mr. Hargreeves, _

_ Thank you for expressing an interest in my work. I receive so little attention for it nowadays, except from brown nosers trying to get a better grade in my classes. I have office hours from 3:00-5:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays if you would like to meet in person to discuss it. If this is a topic you have a particular interest in, might I also suggest auditing a class or two? Let me know when you would like to come in. I look forward to meeting you in person.  _

_ Dr. J. Howarth _ _   
_ _ Physics Department Head, Crown University _

Five breathed a sigh of relief. This was not the first person to email him back about his requests to talk about their work, but Dr. Howarth was the first to accept. He was pleased to finally be taken seriously.

_ Dr. Howarth, _

_ Is tomorrow a good day for you? I can make it at whatever time you have free.  _

_ Five Hargreeves _

He opened the book he’d brought with him to the computer desk and tried to focus on the words in front of him, but it took only a minute or two for him to bring his attention back to the library computer and refresh the page. He wasn’t really expecting an answer so soon, but surprisingly enough, there was an email waiting for him in his inbox. 

_ Mr. Hargreeves, _

_ I have a student coming in at 3:00, but we should be done at 4:00. I’ll put you down for then. I’ll see you tomorrow.  _

_ Dr. J. Howarth _ _   
_ _ Physics Department Head, Crown University _

Five smiled. Well, he thought as he closed out of his browser and started packing up his stuff. This was turning out to be a rather okay day. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five arrived at the office at 4:00 on the dot, and he rapped on the open door. The man behind the desk looked exactly like the picture that had popped up attached to Howarth’s name during his google search. 

“Dr. Howarth,” he greeted as the man stood up, confusion passing over his features. “I’m Number Five. It’s good to meet you in person.”

“Oh,” the man still looked puzzled but he motioned for Five to take a seat. “I must admit, you are a  _ lot  _ younger than I’d imagined you to be.”

“I’m older than I look,” Five told him, sitting in one of the cushioned chairs. 

Howarth chuckled. “There’s no age on genius, Mr. Hargreeves. No need for defenses. I was just a little surprised, is all. So, you’ve read my research?”

By the time either of the men took note of the time, office hours had been over for fifteen minutes and Dr. Howarth’s phone was ringing with a reminder to get to his next class. 

“I have to say, you seem to understand my work even better than I did when I wrote the paper. Have you given any thought to auditing any classes? I’m teaching one that I think you could benefit from. It seems that the work you’re interested in doing lines up with the subject matter.”

“I’ve… thought about it. How would I go about doing that?”

“Well, you can come with me now. It’ll give you a chance to see what the class is all about before you decide to try it. It’s a bit late in the semester to join up now, but maybe next semester?”

“I-- I suppose I can give it a shot.”

Howarth beamed. “Awesome. Well then, just follow me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five made it to Family Dinner Night at the apartment he was sharing with Luther a little bit late, but he made it. They’d set up the dinners aa an effort to actually  _ be  _ more of a family, and coming late wasn’t the best way to keep up with that effort, but he thought he’d be forgiven given Allison wasn’t even going to be present for this one, or really, any of the upcoming ones they’d have while she was in California. 

There was a place set for him at the table in between Vanya and Luther, and he immediately dove for fettuccine alfredo as soon as he sat down. He caught Vanya’s smirk out of the corner of his eye, but because she pushed the bowl closer to him, he chose to ignore it. 

“You might want some of this too,” Diego passed him the plate of garlic bread, and Five took two pieces to add to his carb-laden plate.

“So, where have you been?” Klaus asked. “Dinner was called for eight and if I made an effort to be on time…” 

“You made no effort,” Vanya reminded him. “You didn’t even put on your shoes, you just levitated out to the car when I told you it was time to go.”

“I  _ made it on time _ ,” Klaus insisted. 

“Wait, since when can Klaus levitate?” Luther interrupted. 

“Since like two days ago,” Vanya said, “and he’s been doing it non-stop since he figured out he could.”

“Yes, well, it’s much more convenient than walking, and besides, wouldn’t you if you could?”

“Uh, I  _ can, _ and no, I wouldn’t--”

“Don’t lie; if you had any control you absolutely would--”

“Oh,  _ I’m  _ the one who can’t control their powers, but I’m not the one turning the coffee table into seance-central trying to make some connection with the dead--”

“That’s been working! I just haven’t found the person I’m looking for yet!”

“So you keep saying, and yet, somehow, I find it very difficult to believe that it’s  _ ghosts _ who are going through my makeup drawer and taking my eyeliner pencils when I’m not home.”

“Why are you still hung up on that-- it’s not like you’re using them!”

“Are you done?” Five rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, lifting his plate to his chest and dangling the pasta off the fork and into his mouth. 

Klaus and Vanya quieted, but he could feel them kicking each other underneath the table, and he wondered for a minute why he’d bothered saving them. 

“So, why  _ were _ you late?” Diego asked, moving his casted arm away from Klaus, who was reaching for it with a mischievous look.

“I had a meeting,” Five said. 

Vanya turned to look at him. “You got an email back?”

“Yeah, from this one guy, a professor over at Crown University. He had a lot of interesting things to say about the theory of multi-dimensionality and the possibility of pocket dimensions. I thought I might audit one of his classes when the fall semester starts up. I went to the one he taught earlier this evening, and it was alright.”

“Our Five!” Klaus crowed. “A college student! And to think, he didn’t even go to high school! Oh, they grow up so fast...”

“I’m not a student,” Five insisted. “Apparently I need a GED or similar to even get accepted as a full time student, so that’s out the window until I can take the test, and I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“You’ll need some sort of degree in order to get a position with any accredited corporation,” Luther pointed out.

“So says the astronaut that has no semblance of a formal education.” Five sipped at his water and gave Luther his best, most unimpressed stare. 

“That’s not the point,” The man mumbled, cheeks turning red. 

“And who said I wanted a position with an accredited corporation? Besides, if I go the degree track, I’d have to take classes that I don’t care about, like English or… ugh,  _ art _ .”

“I don’t know…” Vanya said. “You might like it. I took an art class in college that--”

Five shoved at her shoulder. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

Her amused smile told him she was only teasing, but he didn’t appreciate the efforts. 

They’d talked about it when they were kids, the two of them and Ben. They’d always thought that once they left the Academy and went to school, they’d go to college together and help each other knock out all of the mandatory non-major classes they’d have to take. Five would be on the physics track, obviously, and Ben wanted to study English and History, and they’d make sure to go to one of the schools with a music program so Vanya wouldn’t be left out. Between the three of them, they were sure they'd have everything covered.

Of course, between Five’s forty five year leave of absence, and Ben’s death, that was no longer an option. He wondered briefly how Vanya’s college experience was, if she did well in her core curriculum classes, if she even remembered those childhood conversations, if they made things harder for her when she was in school. 

The truth was, despite his claims that he didn't want to take those classes at all, he really just didn’t want to have to go through it all without both of them by his side. 

“Anyway,” he shook those thoughts away and pressed on, “I can get an honorary degree with a good enough paper publication, and so what’s the point if I can just audit a couple of classes and write a paper?”

“How about the fact that you don’t know how to write a paper?” Vanya said, and Five scowled. 

“Yes, I do.” No, he didn’t. And Vanya well knew it. He’d only made it through Mom’s tutoring because Ben and Vanya took turns fixing his papers for him. Knowing the rules of writing a paper didn’t mean he had any idea how to apply them.

Now, his brothers were also fixing him with disbelieving looks, and finally he relented. “So I’ll audit a class in writing for the sciences. It’ll be fine. Anyway, it’s not like any company in the US would hire a guy who looks like a thirteen year old, even though I’m smarter than any of them. Put together.”

“Well, maybe that could be your first project,” Luther suggested. “Maybe with enough research and studying, you can figure out a way to fix your aging process.”

Five paused with his fork halfway to his open mouth. “Hm. You know, that’s not a terrible idea. Good job, Luther. Looks like you have a brain cell after all.”

Luther looked pleased at the compliment for a moment, before what Five had said hit him. Luther frowned. “I can kick you out of this apartment, you know.”

“It’s fine, I’ll just move in with Vanya.”

“Ha! I already have dibs on the couch!” Klaus gleefully gloated. “Where are you going to sleep, the floor?”

“No, you will, after I kick you off the couch with my superior skills in everything.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Vanya sighed.

Two voices said “Nope.” 

“Besides,” Vanya said, “Luther can kick you out of the apartment, but it’s not like you can’t just teleport back into it. And aren’t you both paying equal share of the rent?”

“Where’d you get the money for it, anyway?” Diego asked. 

“The Commission may have sucked the life and soul out of me but it paid. More specifically, it paid to a savings account started in my name in 1960’s New York, which has been collecting interest ever since.”

“And since I never ‘moved out,’ I never stopped getting an allowance from Dad,” Luther said. “Although I’ve been thinking of it more as a salary for all the work I’d been doing for him. And until now, I’ve had little reason to touch any of it, so it was all waiting for me in my own savings account. And now that I’m doing the school circuit, I’m getting that money too…”

“Speaking of money…” Klaus added, “any update on our inheritance? Like, do we get one?”

Five groaned. Living with Luther had been a decision born of necessity more than anything else, and every day he had to hear Luther at nine in the evening, talking to lawyers and insurance agents and contractors while Five tried his best to make sense of Mom’s wiring, he was regretting the necessity more and more. 

Luther, meanwhile, didn’t seem particularly excited to talk about it either. “There are a lot of things to still work out,” he said. “We don’t know if Dad had a will, for example. If he did, we can’t find it. It might be in a safe that was in his office, but we can’t find the safe in the rubble yet, and even if we could, the only people who knew how to get into it were Mom, Dad, and Pogo, none of which we can ask yet. There might be a copy in a safe deposit box, but again, the only people who know which one belonged to him aren’t able to be asked right now. It’s only really been about four weeks since he died, and this stuff takes a while anyway. There’s all this legal red tape… it’s a mess. Our best course of action is to forget about a will altogether, nominate someone to be the trustee, and once they’re cleared, they can divy the money and assets up evenly. If we’re willing to wait until we can find his will, then we don’t have to worry about that. But the lawyer apparently doesn’t have one on file, and we aren’t sure who he named executor of the will, so either we wait, or we act now, and risk finding the will later and having gone against his wishes?”

“Do we care about his wishes?” Five proposed. “He gave us childhoods full of abuse and enough issues and PTSD to fuel a million lifetimes of bad decisions. We should at least get his money too.”

“It’s not about his wishes,” Diego argued. “I don’t want to start getting everything settled only for a will to pop up out of nowhere and cause issues later on. What if none of us were supposed to get the money and some guy out in India is and he comes out of the woodwork with the will in a year and decides to sue us? Or any other list of things might happen-- we need that will.”

“It’s possible he might have left everything to Pogo,” Five mused. “Although with him gone, who would it go to?”

“Ugh, I have a headache,” Vanya declared. “Can we stop talking about this.”

“Hey, maybe you can use your powers to find the safe?” Five said. 

Vanya gave him a look. “I don’t have tremorsense, Five. And even if I could, I don’t know how to use my powers properly. How am I supposed to somehow magically find the safe?”

“Well, your powers are sound based, meaning you are, to some extent, sensitive to specific vibrations. We can try it tomorrow.”

“I… guess?”

“Great. So it’s decided. Diego, pass the garlic bread.”

Five didn’t know if everything he said was at all accurate or if he was bullshitting his way through it, but he was done dealing with the topic. He looked towards the living room, where Mom’s body lay on the floor, surface blemishes fixed, looking for all the world like she was just asleep, if not for the panel of open wiring exposed in her arm. 

He had so much work to do. 

__________________________________________________________________________

**Vanya**

Vanya had never been one for walks in the park, but she was finding more and more that as much as she loved having Klaus as company, she could use the time alone. It wasn’t easy to make the transition from constantly alone to constant company all the time, and she’d started taking twilight strolls with her headphones in and music playing just to get a break from human interaction. 

She should really start paying more attention to the path ahead of her though. 

Her headphones slid off of her ears as she fell to the ground, and she heard a voice above her say, “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”

She nodded and took the hand that slid into her view, allowing the person to pull her up. “It’s fine. I should have been paying more attention.”

“As should I.” 

Vanya looked up and smiled at the man in front of her. A man who looked a bit familiar. 

“Gareth, right?” 

He smiled. “Black coffee with two sugars and cinnamon caramel syrup. Starts with a ‘V…’”

“Vanya. And yeah, that’s exactly my order. You remember it?”

“Just the regular customers. Especially the ones that don’t get angry when the line is too long.”

“Do… People really get angry? But it’s not your fault the store is busy…”

“I know that. They don’t seem to care. But anyway, that’s not the point of this conversation. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Unless people die of mortification, yes. I’m really sorry. I should have--”

“You’re fine, you’re fine,” he reassured her. “I should have as well. I’m meeting my boyfriend here, and I was not looking at the path ahead of me.”

“I wish I had an excuse. I’m just bad at paying attention, I guess… Is that… I’m sorry, you must get this all the time, but your accent... Welsh, right?”

“Yeah. I usually get Irish or Scottish though. You’re certainly familiar with your UK accents.”

“I think I just watch too much Doctor Who. And we had a conductor at the orchestra who was Welsh. He was only there for a year but I grew familiar.”

“The orchestra? You play?”

“Violin, at the Icarus Theater. First chair, now, but I was third for a while.”

“Ah, congrats on your promotion then. Jack was telling me they had a new first chair, but I didn’t realize it was you.”

“Jack?”

“My boyfriend. He likes going to your concerts. He’s tried to get me to go with him, but that last thing I want to do after my shift usually is go and see a show with music known for its relaxing properties. I’d like to be awake to enjoy it if I’m going out.”

“That’s fair. I’ve fallen asleep practicing a few times, and that’s when I have something to focus on.”

Gareth chuckled. “It’s no offense meant to you, I promise.”

“None taken. Really.”

“Gareth!” Someone called his name from behind her, and she turned to see a rather handsome man walking up to them. 

“Ah, Jack. There you are. This is Vanya. I may have accidentally knocked her over.”

Jack extended hand to shake hers, and she smiled and accepted it. 

“Hello,” she said. “We were just talking about you.”

“That sounds ominous,” Jack laughed.

“Vanya’s a violinist with the Icarus Theater.”

“Oh! I thought you looked familiar! You’re the new first chair, right? Your performance the other week was incredible! I’ve never heard anyone play quite like that before.”

Vanya ducked her head, face growing warm with the praise. “That’s really sweet, thank you.”

Jack winked. “You’re cute. I like you. Gareth, I like her. She’s my new best friend. I need more cute best friends.”

Gareth rolled his eyes. “You might want to check with her first. Some people don’t take too kindly to being forced into friendships.”

Vanya smiled. “It’s alright. I can’t say it’s not a new experience, but it’s not an unwelcome one.”

“Well, here,” Jack held out his phone, a new contact page pulled up on the screen. “Put your number in and we can actually follow through on this whole friendship thing.” 

Vanya complied, and he sent her a text so she’d have his number, and then forwarded her number to Gareth. 

“I’d love to stay and chat, but we do have reservations,” Gareth said, glancing at his watch.

“Ah yes. Château Félicité waits for no one,” Jack apologized. 

“The place on Broad St.? I went with my siblings last week. It’s excellent. Enjoy.”

“We will,” Gareth said. “It’s nice to meet you, Vanya! Officially, I mean.”

“You too! Good night!”

The two men took off down the path back the way she’d come from, and she continued walking the way she’d been going, slipping her headphones back over her ears as she did. 

It figured that she’d have spent ages attempting to work up the courage to talk to someone in the orchestra, only for the beginnings of a friendship to bump right into her when she’d been looking for some alone time. She was glad it did. Made things easier on her, at least. And it would be nice to report to Klaus and Five that she’d at least spoken to someone who was not her sibling. 

She’d been surprised when Five had tried to talk to her about it the night before. Of all the people in her family, he’d been who she’d least expected to start nagging her about being sociable. But then, maybe she should just stop  _ expecting  _ things in general. She was usually disappointed. 

He’d been bent over the inanimate arm of their mother, soldering iron in hand, goggles on his face, and she’d decided to keep him company, rather than try and play peacekeeper to the argument that had started between Klaus, Diego, and Luther over whether chocolate cake or chocolate chip cookies were a better dessert option. 

“So, have you made any new friends or have you decided to talk to no one but us forever and be miserable and lonely for the rest of your life?” Five didn’t even look at her when he spoke. 

“Oh god, not you too,” she complained. “I’m getting enough of this from Klaus without having to hear it from you.”

“Yeah, well, Klaus is right. Never tell him I said that, or I’ll never live it down.”

“He wants to sign me up for online dating sites.”

Five paused, and considered. “Well, I was thinking more along the lines of someone in the orchestra, but he’s got the right idea. Statistically speaking,  _ someone _ you work with must have some interest in talking to you.”

She scoffed. “I’ve been in that orchestra for years, and no, it’s not like I tried particularly hard to make friends, but they didn’t try and talk to me either. I don’t know if they even knew I existed.”

“Okay but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try now.”

“Who are you to lecture me about making friends?”

“Vanya, it’s all well and good to get home swearing you’ve changed and you’re going to try harder, but it means nothing if you don’t  _ actually _ try harder. Make some friends. Be a person. Don’t rely on us, we’re assholes.”

“You know what? No. Don’t give me that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to go from trying to make yourself as small as possible to avoid being looked at and potentially being a bother to everyone around you, to suddenly trying to make friends and get noticed? It’s impossible I spent my entire childhood being treated like I was imposing the second I opened my mouth and getting slapped every time I got too close to Dad, I was isolated my entire childhood from the rest of you-- from the rest of the world-- and then I was shoved out into the real world without anyone having ever bothered to try and tell me how I was supposed to talk to real people. How exactly do you expect me to be able to just switch gears all of a sudden and make new friends? I’m trying my best, I’m going to therapy, but I can’t just become a new person overnight.”

Five shook his head. “I wish you’d never grown a backbone. It was so much easier to get you to do stuff when you were still scared of me.”

“I was never scared of you. I was scared of disappointing you, and you leaving me forever. And you already did that, and I survived, so now I’m not so scared of that anymore. Welcome to my dark side, Five. Enjoy it while you can.”

“Yeah, Vanny?” Klaus called from the table. “We’ve seen your dark side. It’s cute that you think this is it.”

“This conversation didn’t concern you,” Five told him, and Klaus laughed.

“Well then, maybe you shouldn’t have been having it so loudly,” Luther added. 

Diego had changed the topic after that and the conversation had ended. She had been so annoyed at how Five had talked to her that she hadn’t processed  _ just  _ how weird it was for  _ him  _ to be the one nagging her. Klaus, she understood. Allison, she expected. Hell, even Diego made sense. But the only person less likely to care about her personal life than Five was Luther. 

She got back to her apartment after her walk and found Klaus arguing with someone she couldn’t see. Which wasn’t unusual, but it did mean that he had been practicing again, trying to raise a specific someone he still wouldn’t tell her much about, and that he was likely to be a little more high strung than he usually was. 

“Vanya! How was your walk?”

“Lovely. Ran into Gareth from the coffee shop.”

“Who?”

“The barista at that place a couple blocks away. Magical coffee making skills.”

“Ah. I still have no idea who that is but it sounds fun.” Klaus hastily shooed away whoever it was that he had been talking to and blew out the scented candle he’d lit with a smile. Then his jaw dropped.    
  
“Wait, did you say you just talked to someone? Like someone we aren’t related to?”

“Stop it.”

“No, but Vanya, this is fantastic! You’re making friends!”

“All I said is that I bumped into someone. I didn’t say we became friends.”

“Did you become friends?”

“...Maybe.” 

Klaus hooted and hollered and Vanya tried frantically to shush him to absolutely no avail. He only quieted when they heard a knock at the door. 

The woman who stood on the other side was tall and pretty, with red-streaked black, braided hair, and the remnants of a dark berry colored lipstick smeared on her lips. She was wearing a green bathrobe over a pair of pajama pants, and her face was twisted into a concerned frown. 

“Is everything okay?” she asked Vanya. “I heard yelling…”

“I”m so sorry,” Vanya replied. “It’s my brother. He’s… excitable.”

Klaus popped up behind her with a wave. “You look like fun. You live upstairs, right?”

“I-- Yeah? I just moved in a few weeks ago.”

“Welcome to the building,” Vanya said. “I promise, we’re not usually this disruptive. Or, at least, I haven’t had any complaints so far.”

“It’s alright,” the woman smirked. “I like a bit of life in my living quarters. Besides, it’s nice to finally have a chance to meet the person I assume is the source of the violin music I hear every morning?” She motioned to the violin just visible next to the couch. 

Vanya could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. “No,” the woman reassured. “I like it. You’re really talented.”

“Thanks,” Vanya replied. 

They stared at each other in silence a few minutes longer, long enough for the woman to scratch awkwardly at the back of her neck and laugh. 

“Well, anyway. I have an early shift so I should get back to my…”

“Right. Of course. It was nice to meet you..”

“Zoe.”

The name struck a chord, and Vanya vaguely remembered the other her mentioning a neighbor named Zoe. 

Vanya smiled. “I’m Vanya. This is Klaus. He promises to be good from now on.”

“Excuse me, I am a paragon of excellent behavior!” Klaus insisted. 

Zoe grinned. “Well, if you’re not, I guess I’m just gonna have to come back and… talk to you again.” Her words were aimed at Klaus, but she was looking at Vanya. 

“What a tragedy that would be,” Vanya’s voice was toneless, but she grinned to show that she was joking. 

“I’ll see you later.” Zoe waved as she turned away, turning back to smile at Vanya as she walked up the stairs. 

“She’s cute,” Klaus said once Vanya had closed the door. “You’ve never met her before?”

“What part of ‘I don’t talk to people’ is difficult to understand?” 

“Didn’t the other Vanya mention a girlfriend named Zoe?”

Vanya stopped on her way back to the couch, eyes wide. 

The other Vanya  _ had  _ said that, hadn’t she? 

_ Oh. _

Klaus laughed and dragged her over to the couch. “Enough of your gay crisis. Come watch  _ Leverage _ with me.”

Klaus turned on the TV and Vanya sat back against the cushions. 

She did like Zoe. She’d only met her for a couple of seconds, but she seemed cool. She didn’t know if she  _ liked  _ her, like potential girlfriend liked her, but that was to be expected. She was pretty, too, which… y’know. 

But she thought about Zoe, and all she could think of was Sissy. She missed her. She had to learn to move on, but she wasn’t sure she really had to do it so soon. It had only been a couple of weeks since she’d said goodbye. Regardless of whether or not she liked Zoe, she couldn’t--  _ shouldn’t-- _ start pursuing her for a  _ while _ . 

But… well, she could always use more friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY LITERALLY THIS CHAPTER IS OVER 12,000 WORDS. THAT'S AROUND 36-37% OF THE ENTIRE STORY. LITERALLY, THE EPILOGUE MAKES UP A THIRD OF THE STORY. I was thinking of maybe cutting it and posting the individual character arcs as a separate story, but that's just too much effort, so here you guy. The longest chapter I have ever written and likely ever will. 
> 
> Special credit to @Gin_Juice and their Picture Book series for the inspiration behind Luther as a school speaker. It was their idea first, or at least, them that I got it from, so yeah! If you want excellent post S1 TUA content, that series is EVERYTHING. 
> 
> I hope I tied up all of the individual plotlines well, and I hope you enjoy the conclusion to this. I was gonna have Vanya pop up in the individual stories less often and then this happened and then I remembered who I am as a writer and.... well... you're just gonna have to live with it I guess? 
> 
> I FINISHED THE STORY GUYS!! I can't believe I got here, and I entirely have you guys to thank! I feel so privileged and honored to have even a single reader, let alone as many as I do, and I'm so thankful to all of the people who have commented and left kudos. Thank you guys for reading, and I'll catch you on the flipside!

**Author's Note:**

> So? Thoughts? Is this a little too cracky? Please, leave a comment down below and let me know what you think?


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